In Grammar, an elegant turn or manner of speech, peculiarly belonging to this or that occasion, this or that art, or this or that language. Thus we say, an Italian phrase, an eastern phrase, a poetical phrase, a rhetorical phrase.

Phrase is sometimes also used for a short sentence or small set or circuit of words constructed together. In this sense, Father Boffier divides phrases into complete and incomplete.

Phrases are complete where there is a noun and a verb, each in its proper function; i.e., where the noun expresses a subject, and the verb the thing affirmed of it.

Incomplete phrases are those where the noun and the verb together only do the office of a noun; consisting of several words without affirming anything, and which might be expressed in a single word. Thus, that which is true, is an incomplete phrase, which might be expressed in one word, truth; as, that which is true satisfies the mind, i.e., truth satisfies the mind.