comma
noun
- punctuation mark
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈkɒmə/ / /ˈkɔmə/ / [ˈkɑ.mə ~ ˈkɑ.mʌ]
noun
Etymology: From Latin comma, from Ancient Greek κόμμα (kómma), from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”).
- The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
“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.”
- A similar-looking subscript diacritical mark.
- 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.
“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.”
“Other members of this genus that are frequently encountered in the park are the eastern comma (P. comma) and question mark (P. interrogationis).”
- A difference in the calculation of nearly identical intervals by different ways.
- A delimiting marker between items in a genetic sequence.
- 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.
- A brief interval.
verb
Etymology: From Latin comma, from Ancient Greek κόμμα (kómma), from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”).
- To place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas.