An operator for limiting the scope of your search. If you enclose a search query within parentheses, the search will match only those files that contain the search query exactly as typed. Parentheses force the search to match the case of your search query, disable proximity searching, and disable stemming.

In a search statement, words placed within parentheses are searched for first. Example: (guns and violence) not children. The computer looks first for sources which deal with guns and violence. It then removes the sources which relate to children.

Some search engines allow users to use parenthesis ( ) to group words. This is especially useful in Boolean searchers .

curved lines, enclosing and setting off a passage; not to be confused with square brackets.

brackets The curved symbols ( and ) that indicate that the MATTER within is PARENTHETICAL or somehow separated.

Grouping symbols ( ).

phishing Poet preprocessor proxomitron

punctuation devices used to set off incidental information.

Used to show which operation to perform first. For example, in (2+3)*4, you would first add 2+3 and then multiply that sum by 4.

Used to group functions, to avoid defaults.