Translingual

Punctuation mark

( )

1. Encloses supplemental information.

   Sen. John McCain (R., Arizona) spoke at length.

2. Encloses a parenthetical phrase.

   I gave it to Fred (who was going there anyways) before I left.

3. Expands a word into another word, inflection or spelling.

   Go get the dog(s) - Here, s is a shorthand for the plural dogs.

   You should (re)write that story. - Here, re is an optional prefix re-.

   Blue is my favo(u)rite colo(u)r. - Here, u is an alternative spelling (color/colour).

   A variable with persistence that is currently above (below) its mean will tend not go below (above) its mean for some time.

4. Encloses a letter or number starting an item in a list.

   (1) New York, (2) London, (3) Paris.

   (A) New York, (B) London, (C) Paris.

Quotations

For usage examples of this term, see Citations:( ).

Synonyms

• (parenthetical phrase) — —

Derived terms

• (…) (used when omitting a section in quoted text)
• (sic) (used to indicate text quoted as-is from the source)
• (!)
• (?)

See also

• to, toi (Lojban)

Punctuation

Symbol

( )

1. (mathematics) Encloses a mathematical phrase that has increased precedence in terms of operators.

   20/2+8=18

   20/(2+8)=2

2. (regular expressions) Defines a marked subexpression, to be matched using the backslash (\1, \2, etc.)

   ([abc])([def]) — \2 matches the 2nd subexpression

3. (programming) Used when defining a new function, enclosing the list of parameters.

   getSum (a, b)

       result = a + b

   return result

4. (programming) Used when calling an existing function, enclosing the list of arguments.

   result = getFirstNumber() + getSecondNumber() + getThirdNumber()

5. (programming) Used with some expressions and conditionals, like "if", "switch", "for", "while", etc., in certain programming languages.

   if (x > 7) then printf "success!" end

6. (chemistry) Encloses a repeated unit in a polymer.

   glutaraldehyde = CH2(CH2CHO)2

Quotations

For usage examples of this term, see Citations:( ).

Related terms

• (mathematical precedence) { }, [ ]

Chinese

Punctuation mark

( )

1. Encloses the pronunciation to a character the reader may not necessarily know.

   黿（yuán）‎

   黿 (read as yuán)

2. (neologism, Internet slang) Used to provide a deeper or second meaning to a phrase. Compare English read ‎(“used after a euphemism to introduce the intended, more blunt meaning of a term”).

   那個男（帥）人（哥）‎

   that man

   那個男（shuai）人（ge）‎

   that man

References

• Victor Mair, "Furigana-like glossing in Mandarin". Language Log.

Japanese

Punctuation mark

( )

1. Used as a plaintext fallback of ruby: encloses the pronunciation to kanji the reader may not necessarily know how to read.

   檸檬（れもん）