Comma

Quick meaning: Comma is a noun meaning (typography) The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.

Meaning

(typography) The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.

More Meanings

1. (Romanian typography) A similar-looking subscript diacritical mark.
2. (music) A difference in the calculation of nearly identical intervals by different ways.
3. (genetics) A delimiting marker between items in a genetic sequence.
4. (figurative) A brief interval.
5. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having a comma-shaped white mark on the underwings, especially Polygonia c-album and Polygonia c-aureum of North Africa, Europe, and Asia.
6. (rhetoric) In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a short clause, something less than a colon, originally denoted by comma marks. In antiquity it was defined as a combination of words having no more than eight syllables in all. It was later applied to longer phrases, e.g. the Johannine comma.
7. (rare, transitive) To place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas.

Example Sentences

Other members of this genus that are frequently encountered in the park are the eastern comma (P. comma) and question mark (P. interrogationis).

Commas (Polygonia comma) and Question Marks (Polygonia interrogationis) occur from the Gulf Coast to Canada and west to the Rockies. [...] Question Marks and Commas are handsome butterflies with burnt orange and black markings. [...] On the underside of each hind wing of the Comma is a small, distinctive silver hook that resembles a comma.

No points were used by the ancient printers, excepting the colon and the period; but, after some time, a short oblique stroke, called a virgil, was introduced, which answered to the modern comma. In the fifteenth century this punctuation was improved by the famous Aldus Manutius with the typographical art in general; when he gave a better shape to the comma, added the semicolon, and assigned to the former points more proper places.

Word Forms

• commas
• commata
• commaes
• come
• commaing
• commaed

Synonyms for comma

Depending on context, synonyms include scratch comma, virgule, virgula, come, comma-point.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include semicolon, colon, paragraph, subparagraph, decimal, point.

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