How to Use paraphrase in a Sentence

paraphrase

1 of 2 noun
Definition of paraphrasenext
Synonyms for paraphrasenext
  • This is just a paraphrase of what he said, not an exact quote.
  • These lyrics do a lot of work, work that transcends paraphrase.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2022
  • The fact-check flagged a misquotation that should have been rendered as a paraphrase.
    — Erik Wemple, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Similarly, if their paraphrase is so at odds with what McCabe said, why aren't Democrats making a bigger deal out of it?
    — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2018
  • That heading is a paraphrase of something Gertrude Stein said about the difference between poetry and prose.
    — New York Times, 15 July 2021
  • This is reputedly a paraphrase of an assertion of Genghis Khan.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 28 Apr. 2011
  • The simplest answer to a shopper’s dilemma might be a paraphrase of the advice that food writer Michael Pollan offered to those of us perplexed by our mealtime choices: Buy clothes.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2019
  • The past, even so recent a past as 1979, a time in which a paraphrase of Lafferty’s story could still conceivably be written, is unsustainable.
    — Jonathan Lethem, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2022
  • That's a paraphrase of a line usually attributed to military strategist Sun-Tzu.
    — Damon Linker, The Week, 1 Mar. 2022
  • To share another paraphrase of Marous, data and how it is used creates the foundation of a strong financial relationship in today’s world.
    — Monica Hovsepian, Forbes, 5 Jan. 2022
  • That’s a deft paraphrase of an old Greek mythic principle: Oblos (great wealth) leads to hubris (pride), inevitably followed by the goddess Nemesis (retribution).
    — Ralph Benko, Fortune, 27 Sep. 2020
  • Rather than a paraphrase of the much earlier and much less certain quote of abolitionist minster, Theordore Parker.
    — Alexander Finlayson, Forbes, 7 Apr. 2021
  • The third section is a paraphrase of archaeologist Howard Carter describing his experience in 1922 of peering through an opening to discover King Tut’s tomb.
    — A.j. Jacobs, WSJ, 23 Apr. 2022
  • Goldman’s three-word distillation turned out to be perhaps the greatest paraphrase in Hollywood history.
    — Washington Post, 9 June 2022
  • Such beliefs are belated, lapsed, overdue, like a book checked out from a library and then lost for decades; the story has moved indoors, the frontier has become one of recursion, quotation, paraphrase, allegory.
    — Jonathan Lethem, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2022
  • This is a perfect paraphrase of the vision that Marcellin Berthelot was promulgating exactly 120 years earlier.
    — Richard Faulk, Discover Magazine, 4 June 2015
  • Those sayings included Wright’s paraphrase of some advice from Chicago author Nelson Algren.
    — Graydon Megan, chicagotribune.com, 10 Nov. 2019
  • Alvim, a born-again Christian who found renewed faith while recovering from cancer, delivered a separate message about the initiative using a phrase that local media identified as a paraphrase of a 1933 speech by Goebbels.
    — Washington Post, 18 Jan. 2020
  • All were drawn together by a continuous colonnade, culminating at one end in Jefferson’s great rotunda, a paraphrase of the Roman Pantheon that served as the university library.
    — Michael J. Lewis, WSJ, 14 Oct. 2020
  • In paraphrase, analysts at the firm reasoned that neither Covid-19, nor the ruinous 9.9% contraction experienced by the United Kingdom, were necessarily the actual problem.
    — Will Nicoll, Forbes, 22 Jan. 2022
  • Regularly, Ferry’s translation becomes a kind of paraphrase.
    — Denis Feeney, New York Times, 5 Dec. 2017
  • Safranski’s book (a best seller in Germany) is aimed squarely at a German readership of Bildungsbürger, educated and tolerant of abstractions and paraphrases.
    — Michael Hofmann, New York Times, 16 June 2017
  • So do the devices that novelists as different as Ferrante and Knausgaard rely on: characters, dialogue, incident, chronology, and, especially, the rendering of everyday life through precise, detail-flecked paraphrase.
    — Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 2019
  • This is just a paraphrase of what he said, not an exact quote.
  • These lyrics do a lot of work, work that transcends paraphrase.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2022
  • The fact-check flagged a misquotation that should have been rendered as a paraphrase.
    — Erik Wemple, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2022
  • Similarly, if their paraphrase is so at odds with what McCabe said, why aren't Democrats making a bigger deal out of it?
    — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2018
  • That heading is a paraphrase of something Gertrude Stein said about the difference between poetry and prose.
    — New York Times, 15 July 2021
  • This is reputedly a paraphrase of an assertion of Genghis Khan.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 28 Apr. 2011
  • The simplest answer to a shopper’s dilemma might be a paraphrase of the advice that food writer Michael Pollan offered to those of us perplexed by our mealtime choices: Buy clothes.
    — Robin Givhan, Washington Post, 18 Nov. 2019
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paraphrase

2 of 2 verb
  • To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the story.
    — Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 15 May 2023
  • The western sky, to paraphrase the poet, did not burn and rave at close of day.
    — Martin Weil, Washington Post, 4 Nov. 2023
  • On the long trails of my past, booze was self-care, the thing my mind needed, to paraphrase Parr.
    — Grayson Haver Currin, Outside Online, 30 Dec. 2022
  • To paraphrase, on paper, the Utes are better than the Gators.
    — Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 28 Aug. 2022
  • Well, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the angels will weep for them.
    — Detroit Free Press, 27 Nov. 2021
  • The heart knows things that the mind can’t explain, to paraphrase Pascal.
    — Kathy Caprino, Forbes, 4 June 2021
  • To paraphrase Smith, if a player wants to be at Utah, great.
    — Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 3 May 2021
  • To paraphrase the 1990s band Chumbawamba: Play the songs that remind them of the good times.
    — John Hodgman, New York Times, 13 July 2023
  • The credit goes to the man in the arena, to paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, not the critic.
    — Jodie Cook, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2021
  • To paraphrase our rabbis, in a place where there is no ish, stand up and be one (Ethics of the Sages 2:5).
    — Rabbi Avi Weiss, Sun Sentinel, 9 Jan. 2023
  • To paraphrase one of Winslow’s heroes, Elmore Leonard, the key is to cut the stuff no one will read.
    — Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Possibly, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, that’s not the way to bet.
    — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 2021
  • To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, one wonders if there is a there there.
    — Mosi Reeves, Rolling Stone, 9 May 2022
  • To paraphrase a very old line: other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?
    — Brian Lowry, CNN, 15 Mar. 2024
  • Now, to paraphrase an iconic Mel and Sue phrase: On your marks, get set...shop!
    — Caroline Hallemann, Town & Country, 22 July 2022
  • To paraphrase a passage from the Talmud, the long road is the shortest because the short roads lead nowhere.
    — James McKenna, Quartz, 14 Feb. 2023
  • To paraphrase John Adams, a free republic will be one of ideas, not of men.
    — The Editors, National Review, 21 Oct. 2021
  • To paraphrase Chandler Bing, can this get any more creepy?
    — Kturnqui, oregonlive, 31 May 2023
  • But to paraphrase one of their own songs, welcome back, prog-rock friends, to the show that may never end.
    — David Browne, Rolling Stone, 28 Oct. 2021
  • To paraphrase a golf saying, dunk for show, defend and hit 3s for dough.
    — Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY, 12 Nov. 2021
  • To paraphrase an old motto, let your mouse do the walking.
    — Motormouth Bob Weber, Star Tribune, 18 June 2021
  • To paraphrase Robert Frost, the roads these two men were on diverged in a wood, and Biden took the one the law requires you to travel on.
    — Bradley P. Moss, CNN, 11 Jan. 2023
  • To paraphrase the legendary book by Carey McWilliams, a critique of our factories in the fires.
    — Gustavo Arellanocolumnist, Los Angeles Times, 4 Oct. 2022
  • To paraphrase the immortal words of Jay-Z: 50 Cent is a business, man.
    — Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 9 Feb. 2023
  • To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, the county will pave this non-paradise to put up a parking lot.
    — Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 2023
  • But in the long run, to paraphrase Tom Brady from 20 or so years ago, his favorite receiver needs to be the one that’s open.
    — Chad Finn, BostonGlobe.com, 21 Oct. 2022
  • Yes, to paraphrase Tolstoy, all seasons are strange in their own strange ways, but this one?
    — Ryan Ford, Detroit Free Press, 17 Apr. 2023
  • To paraphrase from the song by Johnny Mercer, something’s gotta give.
    — Stephen Buck, STAT, 21 Nov. 2023
  • To paraphrase Yogi Berra, nobody wants to go to a club that’s too crowded.
    — Telis Demos, WSJ, 4 June 2021
  • To paraphrase Julie Andrews and the Muppets: The springtime cometh for the housing market.
    — Alena Botros, Fortune, 14 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paraphrase.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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