phatic
/ˈfætɪk/
phatic adjective: pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
Adjective
phatic (comparative more phatic, superlative most phatic)
- Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
- You needn't be angry about the insincerity of shopkeepers' how-are-you greetings. Well-adjusted people understand that the question is phatic in the context and that that's usually no problem.
- Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't.
Noun
phatic (plural phatics)
- A phatic utterance.
phatic meaning in Indonesian
phatic in Indonesian
- pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship
- fatis
Examples of phatic in a sentence
- Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech.1978, Anthony Burgess, 1985:
- Dispensing with phatic chitchat, he began straightaway to tell the story of his “people.”2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 467:
Forms of phatic
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more phatic |
| superlative | most phatic |
| Noun | |
| plural | phatics |
Origin of phatic
From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic. Probably formally influenced by emphatic, which predates this term.
Words formed from phatic
Words that rhyme with phatic
- automatic
- chromatic
- emphatic
- static
- systematic
- idiomatic
- attic
- hexachromatic
- thematic
- aromatic
- democratic
- hepatic
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- lymphatic
- schematic
- adiabatic
- aristocratic
- asymptomatic
- athematic
- autocratic
- axiomatic
- chiasmatic
- erratic
- fanatic
- fluorochromatic
- interchromatic
- phlegmatic
- prismatic
- psychosomatic
- quadchromatic
- rheumatic
- sciatic
- stromatic
- aerobatic
- altermatic
- aposematic
- asthmatic
- bathochromatic
- bizygomatic
- bureaucratic
- chorochromatic
- chromocratic
- circumzygomatic
- coccochromatic
- curatic
- diabatic
- dyschromatic
- endolymphatic
- episematic
- epistatic
- frontozygomatic
- glymphatic
- goniochromatic
- graphematic
- herostratic
- hydroinformatic
- idiosyncratic
- immunochromatic
- infrazygomatic
- interzygomatic
- katabatic
Questions about phatic
- What does phatic mean?
- Phatic means pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
- What is phatic in Indonesian?
- Phatic in Indonesian is fatis. See Phatic meaning in Indonesian.
- How do you use phatic in a sentence?
- Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech.
- What part of speech is phatic?
- Phatic can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce phatic?
- Phatic is pronounced /ˈfætɪk/.
Words near phatic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: phatic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-phatic.wav.
Cite this entry: “phatic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phatic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.