emphasized

Emphasized is the past tense and past participle of emphasize. Emphasize means to give special importance or prominence to something, to stress or highlight an element in speech, writing, or other forms of communication. When a word, idea, or feature is emphasized, its importance is made more salient.

The term emphasizes derives from the noun emphasis, with roots in Latin and Greek. In English usage, emphasize evolved in the early modern period and is used in both everyday language and formal writing to indicate a shift in focus or importance.

In linguistics and rhetoric, emphasis refers to mechanisms by which speakers or writers assign greater prominence to a segment of discourse. Prosodic features such as pitch, loudness, tempo, or duration can convey emphasis in speech, while syntactic placement and contrastive focus can mark it in writing.

In typography and digital text, emphasis is indicated by stylistic markers such as bold or italic type, underlining, or quotation marks, depending on the style guide and medium. Capitalization or punctuation (for example, exclamation marks) can also serve as emphasis in informal writing.

Examples illustrate the concept: “We must emphasize safety” highlights safety as a priority, while “The key point is not the cost, but the timing” uses contrast to give emphasis to a specific element. Emphasis is a common device across communication disciplines, used to guide attention and influence interpretation.