Concept
Paraphrase
Overview
A paraphrase () or rephrase is a rewording of a text that retains the original meaning. Paraphrasing can enhance clarity and effectiveness in conveying ideas. It involves expressing the same concepts as the original text in a new way. For example, when someone tells a story they have heard, they paraphrase it in their own words while preserving the meaning. The term comes from the Latin paraphrasis, from Ancient Greek παράφρασις (paráphrasis) 'additional manner of expression'. The act of paraphrasing is also called paraphrasis.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In the English language this is commonly done, by prefixing, what are called the personal pronouns, to the general word which expresses the event affirmed. _I came_, _you came_, _he_ or _it came_; in these phrases the event of having come is, in the first, affirmed of the speaker; in the second, of the person spoken to; in the third, of some other person, or object. The first formers of language, it may be imagined…
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
States what Paraphrase is.
It may be said to be, at once, both what the logicians call, a singular, and what they call, a common term; and to join, in its signification the seemingly opposite qualities of the most precise individuality and the most extensive generalization. This word, therefore, expressing so very abstract and metaphysical an idea, would not easily or readily occur to the first formers of language. What are called the…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Paraphrase is.
To paraphrase the sense is this "But say my opponents, the Stoics and Antiocheans, we desire no better senses than we have." Well you are like the mole, which does not yearn for the light because it does not know what light is. Of course all the ancients thought the mole blind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Academica
Opens on Paraphrase; names Paraphrase.
Philosophers who discussed Paraphrase
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.