context
Context is the words surrounding a statement, or the circumstances around an event, that decide how it should be understood.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Definitions
- The words or passages surrounding a word or statement, which determine how it is to be understood.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The circumstances that form the setting for an event or an idea.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Examples
- Quoted out of context, the remark sounds far harsher.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - The decision made sense in the context of the time.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Usage
Context belongs to neutral, fairly formal English and appears in both speech and writing, though the fixed phrases do most of the work. In conversation the common shapes are in context and out of context, spoken as a short verdict on a quotation. In academic and legal writing the noun is often preceded by an adjective that names the frame: historical context, social context, the wider context of the dispute.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The noun takes the prepositions in, out of and within, and the pattern the context of plus a noun. It is countable, so one says a context, several contexts, the context in which something happened. Common verbs are provide, consider and set, and the fixed phrase is take something out of context. The phrasing in the context of is more formal than a plain in.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)The commonest mistake is to treat context as an excuse that cancels any judgement, so that out of context becomes a way of ending an argument rather than clarifying it. A related error applies the word to the physical surroundings of an object, where surroundings or setting fits better. Context is about meaning and conditions, not about what happens to stand nearby.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Word forms
Regular forms according to English morphology (editorial description).
word forms
| przypadek | forma |
|---|---|
| singular | context |
| plural | contexts |
Word forms: Editorial team
Collocations
- in context
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - out of context
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address) - historical context
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)
Synonyms · Antonyms
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Etymology
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W. W. Skeat, An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed., Oxford 1910, open sourceRelated words
- contextual , adjective
Related entries
Questions and answers
What does context mean?
Context is the material around a word or statement, and the circumstances around an event, that determine how the thing is read. In language it covers the sentences before and after; in a wider sense it covers the conditions that shaped an event and that a listener needs in order to judge it fairly.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Is context countable?
Yes. Context is a countable noun: a context, the contexts of the two decisions, several different contexts. The plural is used when separate settings are meant. The fixed phrases in context and out of context usually take no article, because they work as adverbial phrases rather than as full noun phrases.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)What is the difference between context and setting?
Setting is the place and conditions in which something happens, and it often refers to physical or narrative surroundings. Context is broader and always tied to meaning: it is what a reader or listener needs in order to interpret something correctly. A scene has a setting, while a remark has a context.
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Editorial team (in-house source, no external address)Where does the word context come from?
Skeat traces it to Latin contextus, a joining together, and to the verb contexere, which joins con, together, with texere, to weave. He records the English noun in the seventeenth century. The image is of words held in place by their neighbours, the way threads are held by the weave around them.