Meaning of paragraph in English

paragraph

/ˈper.ə.ɡræf/ uk

/ˈpær.ə.ɡrɑːf/

(written abbreviation para)

a short part of a text, consisting of at least one sentence and beginning on a new line. It usually deals with a single event, description, idea, etc.:

paragraph symbol Specialized pieces of punctuation, such as cedillas, umlauts or paragraph symbols cannot be found on a computer keyboard.

next paragraph There is usually a conclusion in the final sentence of a paragraph and sometimes there is a link to the next paragraph.

new paragraph The way to start a new paragraph is by pressing the “Enter” key on your keyboard to create a line break.

More examplesFewer examples

Can you pick out the three deliberate mistakes in this paragraph?
Cut that paragraph and then paste it at the end of the page.
Now turn to page 23 and look at the first paragraph.
Each new paragraph should be indented about two centimeters from the margin.
You just need to tweak the last paragraph and then it's done.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Pieces of writing

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Grammar

Paragraphs

We organise what we write into sentences and paragraphs. A paragraph begins on a new line within the text and there is often a blank line between paragraphs. A paragraph usually contains more than one sentence and it is usually about one topic. …

(Definition of paragraph from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

paragraph | Intermediate English

paragraph

noun [ C ]

/ˈpær·əˌɡræf/

(abbreviation par.)

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a short part of a text that begins on a new line and consists of one or more sentences dealing with a single idea

(Definition of paragraph from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

paragraph | Business English

paragraph

noun [ C ]

/ˈpærəɡrɑːf/ us

/ˈpærəɡræf/

( written abbreviation para)

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one of the parts that a piece of writing is divided into, consisting of one or more sentences and beginning on a new line:

What ideas is the author trying to express in the first paragraph?

the opening/closing/introductory paragraph The closing paragraph of the article is not very convincing.

(Definition of paragraph from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of paragraph

paragraph

If you're the poor spouse, reverse the advice in the last paragraph.

From Slate Magazine

How many paragraphs should one quote from an online news article?

From TIME

Such questions can not be answered in a single sentence or paragraph.

From Heritage.org

Every paragraph would not share any space with the previous or next paragraph.

From TIME

Some of these stories are a paragraph or two; some, just a couple of sentences.

From NPR

Notice that it takes a paragraph to tell each of these truths.

From Huffington Post

His choice of profession seems preordained, as he speaks in fully formed paragraphs, his thoughts organized by topic sentences.

From The Atlantic

Riffling through the pages of treatment histories and test results, they drafted a short paper, only nine paragraphs long.

From Wired

It's free and probably will take no more time than reading the next paragraph.

From Huffington Post

The race is over by the end of the first paragraph.

From Los Angeles Times

All this, spun out of the words contained in the book's opening paragraph, and in just five-and-a-half minutes.

From NPR

Their experiments involved participants reading stories that were either as-is, with a spoiler paragraph in the beginning or with the spoiler included in the story.

From NPR

After minutes of work, this accomplished one thing: a single letter hanging to the left of a paragraph.

From Ars Technica

The paragraphs about people in challenging situations: the divorced and remarried, those who are cohabiting, etc., get all the attention.

From Chicago Tribune

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with paragraph

paragraph

These are words often used in combination with paragraph.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

brief paragraph

The reason is set out in a brief paragraph.

From the

Hansard archive

Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0

concluding paragraph

This is made clear in my concluding paragraph.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

final paragraph

It is not until the final paragraph that he puts forward an unanswered objection.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all collocations with paragraph

What is the pronunciation of paragraph?

Translations of paragraph

in Chinese (Traditional)

（文章的）段，段落…

Meaning of paragraph in English

Grammar

paragraph | Intermediate English

paragraph | Business English

Examples of paragraph

Collocations with paragraph

paragraph

Translations of paragraph

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