Other forms: punctuations
Punctuation is the dots, commas and marks that organise written sentences. Correct punctuation, punctuation marks, no punctuation at all.
It marks the grouping and the pauses that speech does with breath and pitch, which is why reading badly punctuated writing is tiring rather than merely untidy. English uses about a dozen marks. The Oxford comma — the one before and in a list — is the most argued-about of them. Note punctuate; and that classical Latin was written without punctuation or even spaces between words.
1nounpunctuationThe dots, commas and marks that organise written sentences.
“Check your punctuation carefully, because a missing comma can change the meaning.”
punctuation is a system of written marks.
Medieval Latin punctuatio comes from punctum, a point, from pungere, to prick. Point, puncture and pungent all come from the same pricking.
Medieval Latin
punctuātiō — a marking with points, a writing, agreement
English, today
punctuation
Built from
Borrowed from Medieval Latin punctuātiō (“a marking with points, a writing, agreement”), from punctuō (“to mark with points, settle”). Morphologically, punctuate + ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA