paragraph

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   write paragraphs

   work as a paragrapher

2. 2
   verb

   to write about in a paragraph

   All my friends were paragraphed in last Monday's paper.

3. 3
   verb

   divide into paragraphs, as of text

   This story is well paragraphed

4. 4
   noun

   A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic.

   opening paragraph

5. 5
   noun

   A brief article, notice, or announcement, as in a newspaper.

   Much of its earliest foreign news came direct from the minister, and not seldom in his own hand. Louis XIII. took a keen, perhaps a somewhat childish, interest in the progress of the infant Gazette, and was a frequent contributor, now and then taking his little paragraphs to the printing office himself, and seeing them put into type.

6. 6
   noun

   one of several distinct subdivisions of a text intended to separate ideas

7. 7
   noun

   A mark or note set in the margin to call attention to something in the text, such as a change of subject.

8. 8
   noun

   An offset of 16 bytes in Intel memory architectures.

Etymology

From Middle English paragraf, from Middle French paragraphe from Latin paragraphus (“sign for start of a new section of discourse”), from Ancient Greek παράγραφος (parágraphos), from παρά (pará, “beside”) and γράφω (gráphō, “to write”). Doublet of paragraphos.