punctuation
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English
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin punctuātiō (“a marking with points, a writing, agreement”), from punctuō (“to mark with points, settle”). Morphologically, punctuate + -ion.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /pʌŋk.t͡ʃuˈeɪ.ʃən/
- Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
punctuation (countable and uncountable, plural punctuations)
- A set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses, phrases and sentences; examples include commas, hyphens, and stops (periods).
- Different languages have different rules for punctuation.
- An act of punctuating.
Meronyms
- see an extensive list of such marks at Thesaurus:punctuation mark
Derived terms
Related terms
- apostrophe ( ' ) ( ’ )
- curly brackets or braces (US) ( { } )
- square brackets or brackets (US) ( [ ] )
- colon ( : )
- comma ( , )
- dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
- ellipsis ( … )
- exclamation mark ( ! )
- fraction slash ( ⁄ )
- guillemets ( « » ) ( ‹ › )
- hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
- interpunct ( · )
- interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
- brackets or parentheses (US, Canada) ( ( ) )
- full stop or period (US, Canada) ( . )
- question mark ( ? )
- quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ‚ ) ( “ ” „ )
- quotation marks (informal, computing) ( " ) ( ' )
- semicolon ( ; )
- slash or stroke (UK) ( / )
- space ( ] [ )
Translations
set of symbols
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act
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Further reading
- “punctuation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “punctuation”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.