emphasis: [16] In Greek, émphasis originally meant simply ‘appearance’. It was a derivative of emphaínein ‘exhibit, indicate’, a compound verb formed from the prefix en- ‘in’ and phaínein ‘show’ (source of English phase). It came to be used as a grammatical term denoting ‘implication’ (as opposed to ‘directly expressed meaning’) and passed in this sense via Latin emphasis into English. Its main modern use, ‘special importance placed on something’, derives from the stressing of a particular word or phrase in speech to show that it is intended to imply something other than its literal meaning might seem to suggest. => phase[emphasis etymology, emphasis origin, 英语词源]