Interjections

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Words or short phrases used to quickly express emotion, feeling, or sudden reaction in speech
2. Expressions used in language to convey spontaneous feelings or to react to situations vividly
3. Vocal or written words that show an instant emotional response, often standing alone without grammatical connection

Etymology: The most striking fact here is the Old English word it displaced. Before Latin "interiectio" reached English, speakers called these outbursts "betwēoxāworpennes", which meant something close to "between-thrown-out-ness": a literal picture of a cry flung into the middle of a sentence. English had a native word for the idea and still borrowed the Latin one. The Latin source is "interiectio", "a throwing or placing between", built from "inter" ("between") and "iacio" ("throw"). The same image of something tossed into a gap underlies the Latin term, so the English word preserves the physical metaphor in its parts. It reached English through Old French "interjection" and, in Middle English, appeared as "interjeccioun". Because the word is a plural here, "interjections" is simply the plural of "interjection", so the history above applies to it directly.

Synonyms: exclamations, interruptions