Meaning & use
syntax
The set of rules that governs how words are arranged to form correct sentences or phrases in a language.
See it in a sentence
English syntax generally places the subject before the verb, unlike some other languages.
The programmer spent an hour fixing a single syntax error in the code.
A note on using this word
In linguistics, syntax deals specifically with word order and sentence structure, distinct from morphology, which concerns word forms, and semantics, which concerns meaning.
Words with a similar meaning
grammarstructure
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