ap·pos·i·tive
ə-ˈpä-zə-tiv 
a-
plural appositives
: a pair or occasionally a series of usually adjacent words, phrases, or clauses (especially nouns or noun equivalents) that have the same referent and that stand in the same syntactical relation to the rest of the sentence (such as the poet and Burns in "a biography of the poet Burns") : a pair or series of words, phrases, or clauses standing in grammatical apposition
To succeed in the genre, a writer has got to accentuate the appositive, that key phrase between the first two commas telling you just who the corpse was and what he did. [Robert McGill] Thomas [Jr.] can hold this syntactical note longer than Placido Domingo: "Benjamin Eisenstadt, the innovative Brooklyn businessman who set Americans to shaking their sugar before sweetening their coffee and then shook up the entire sweetener industry as the developer of Sweet'n Low, died at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center."—
Thomas Mallon
Thomas Mallon
: of, relating to, or standing in grammatical apposition : of, relating to, or being a grammatical appositive
an appositive word/phrase/clause
appositively
adverb
Examples of appositive in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the WebDavid Owen, The New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2023
Adjective
The first phrase is an appositive—typically a noun or noun phrase that modifies another noun or noun phrase, which appears next to it in the sentence.
—David Owen, The New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'appositive.' 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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Cite this Entry
“Appositive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/appositive. Accessed 27 Jun. 2024.
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