sidebar
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A short news story presenting sidelights on a major story.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sydbahrSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsaɪdbɑɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A short news story presenting sidelights on a major story
A short news story printed alongside a larger one.
Internet
A block of information placed at the side of a webpage.
typography
A block of information placed at the side of a printed page.
A short conversation between a smaller portion of a group held outside the hearing of the rest of the group.
An accessory side note or aside made during a conversation, without changing the scope of the audience.
verb
transitive
To place (information) into a sidebar, or as if into a sidebar.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A short news story presenting sidelights on a major story
Used this way, sidebar is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in news or reporting contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- News/reporting
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sidebar
- “I read the short sidebar in the newspaper next to the main article.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.