How to Use syntax in a Sentence
syntax
noun-
In the fiction biz, of course, syntax is a matter of craft.
—Lionel Shriver, Harper's magazine, 22 July 2019
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Keene had watched the show and marveled at its unique syntax.
—Thea Glassman, Rolling Stone, 27 June 2023
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The bug is triggered inside of log messages with use of the ${} syntax.
—Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 9 Dec. 2021
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More than the arms and moles of ex-wives, syntax and grammar excite him.
—Merve Emre, The New York Review of Books, 10 Mar. 2020
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But their brains are not equipped to follow our syntax.
—Brian Resnick, Vox, 6 Dec. 2018
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Artists make objects steeped in meaning and are well-equipped to parse the grammar and syntax of stuff.
—Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 1 June 2022
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His syntax has always been ragged; that hasn’t changed.
—Los Angeles Times, 21 Nov. 2021
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Carl Phillips turns the syntax of a sentence into something like the chords of a bagpipe.
—Carl Phillips, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2021
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Play around with the examples underneath the input box to get an idea of the syntax.
—David Nield, Popular Science, 30 June 2020
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Her focus these days is making phone calls from her Berlin studio to record the syntax of war.
—Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2022
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According to the House, Chiuri’s aim is to reassert the syntax and grammar of the atelier and get back to the essence of couture, which is to dress the body.
—Allyson Portee, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022
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There was no style but life, no syntax but life, its logic and illogic, its ebb and flow.
—Han Ong, The New Yorker, 9 Jan. 2023
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My syntax has switched back and forth, without warning.
—George McCalman, SFChronicle.com, 10 June 2020
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These gluten and syntax dye free Gummies have no high fructose corn syrup and come in a 90 count bottle--45 servings total.
—Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 4 Nov. 2022
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There are no braided points of view here, no too-pretty words, no splintered syntax.
—New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022
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What made his music special was in the cleverness of his syntax, the modulation of his voice, the depth of his grooves.
—Paul Thompson, Vulture, 26 Apr. 2021
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Gertrude Stein’s roundelay-like syntax and logic feel very present here.
—Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 5 Apr. 2021
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Then start the search again but from a different perspective, to see how slight shifts in syntax change your results.
—Wired, 18 Aug. 2022
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This is not meant to be a lesson in syntax, but a lesson in psychology.
—Jerry Weissman, Forbes, 11 Mar. 2021
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The diction is matter-of-fact, the syntax conventional; the imagery is simple and bare-boned.
—Donika Kelly, New York Times, 27 Jan. 2022
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My father insisted on the use of the right words, on calling things by their right names, and his syntax was powerful.
—Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 29 May 2019
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Chatbots have learned style, syntax and tone, for example, all on their own.
—Max G. Levy, Quanta Magazine, 12 May 2023
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The syntax of Hangul leaves much unsaid: subjects are implied; pronouns are rare.
—E. Tammy Kim, The New Yorker, 14 July 2023
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This is unusual in English, but standard in French and Latin syntax.
—Jonah Engel Bromwich, New York Times, 16 July 2019
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Many phishing emails no longer contain the egregious spelling or syntax errors that were once tell-tale signs of fraud.
—Yec, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2022
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But not many people can put a word to it — especially in terms of grammar and syntax and what kind of slant rhyme is going on.
—Jordan A. Rothacker, SPIN, 31 Dec. 2022
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The poem’s syntax traverses the hills and valleys of thought as the mind wanders from image to image in a stream-of-consciousness way.
—Bernadette Mayer Victoria Chang, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2023
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One develops an ear for the edge cases in grammar and syntax that Grammarly tends to flag but which make sentences snap.
—Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker, 25 May 2018
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Clarifications are used when the facts are correct but the words used or syntax deployed could make the meaning confusing.
—Washington Examiner, 15 Dec. 2023
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During pre-training, the model learns to predict the next word in a sentence given the previous words among other tasks designed to improve its understanding of language syntax, semantics, and context.
—Sunil Rajaraman, Forbes, 29 Feb. 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'syntax.' 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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