1. Special importance or significance
   "the red light gave the central figure increased emphasis";
   - accent
    
2. Intensity or forcefulness of expression
   "his emphasis on civil rights";
   - vehemence, vehemency
    
3. Special and significant stress by means of position or repetition
   "The speaker used emphasis when he repeated the phrase 'Now is the time' at the beginning of each paragraph"
    
4. The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch)
   "he put the emphasis on the wrong syllable";
   - stress, accent

Derived forms: emphases

Type of: grandness, importance, inflection, intensity, intensiveness, prosody, rhetorical device

Encyclopedia: Emphasis, Stuttgart 1961