parens

¹

[ puh-renz ]

plural noun

, Informal.

1. parentheses:

   The entire sentence should be in parens.

parens.

²

abbreviation for

1. parentheses.

Word History and Origins

Origin of parens¹

By shortening

Example Sentences

After discussions that were at times “downright painful, uncomfortable,” says co-PI Erik Parens, an ethicist at Hastings, the panel saw value in assigning genetic scores to certain behavioral traits in individual populations.

From Science Magazine

Michele Goodwin: If we’re to understand the history of the parens patriae authority that the state has, we could look back to 1905 and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Jacobson v.

From Slate

The government also said the states lacked power to sue under a doctrine known as “parens patriae,” Latin for “parent of the nation,” because it allegedly would not protect children from harm.

From Reuters

Under the legal doctrine called “parens patriae” — parent of the nation — states, in a wide swath of cases, often assume the role of vindicating the interests of vulnerable citizens.

From New York Times

But that law is in opposition to the “parens patriae” theory, a centuries-old principle that empowers the state to look after the interests of children and others unable to care for themselves.

From New York Times

More About Parens

What does parens mean?

Parens is an informal shortening of the term parentheses. 

Parens look like (  ). They are used mostly in writing, mathematics, and computer programming.

In writing, parens are punctuation marks used to enclose text that gives secondary information to the sentence, as in Jonah (the person who sat alone in the back) really liked the play.

In mathematics, parens are used to group numbers and to denote multiplication. In operator precedence (the order of operations in math), calculations within parens are completed first.

In computer programming, parens are used for a variety of reasons, depending on the coding language. For example, parens are sometimes used to separate words, numbers, or data visually or to relay those characters to a function or process of the program. 

While use of the term parens is largely to save time and space, in some coding functions, data will only be taken from parentheses if the code uses the term parens instead of parentheses. 

Occasionally in computer programming, the term will be used in its singular (paren). 

Example: I did well on my history paper except that I totally forgot to use parens in the cites.

Where does parens come from?

The first records of the term parens come from around the early 1900s. It is an informal shortening of the term parentheses. Parentheses ultimately comes from the Greek parénthesis, meaning “a putting in beside.” Text is put inside of parentheses as an aside to the main sentence.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to parens?

• paren (singular)

What are some synonyms for parens?

• parentheses

What are some words that share a root or word element with parens? 

• parenthesis
• parenthetical
• parenthesize

What are some words that often get used in discussing parens?

• coding
• sentence
• mathematics
• punctuate
• separate

How is parens used in real life?

Parens is used informally to refer to parentheses, especially in writing, mathematics, and computer coding.

This is programming in a nutshell.

I have been trying to get these JavaScript tests to pass for hours. Stayed up late. 55 tabs open. JS SUX

Call @noopkat, give her 15 mins of context and setup. She quietly says:

"Remove that function and parens on line 38."

It works. I SUX.

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) January 29, 2019

When you put something in parens and then want to add a smiley at the end (pre-emoji) do you use the end paren as part of the smiley (like this :) or not (like this :)).

Am I the only one that stresses about this stuff?

— Joe Beda (@jbeda) November 2, 2019

 

 

Try using parens!

Is parens used correctly in the following sentence?

“Alexi’s program didn’t work because he used parentheses instead of parens in the code.”