Word Meanings - PUNCTUATION - Book Publishers vocabulary database

The act or art of punctuating or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning. Note: Punctuation, as the

Additional info about word: PUNCTUATION

The act or art of punctuating or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning. Note: Punctuation, as the term is usually understood, is chiefly performed with four points: the period , the colon , the semicolon , and the comma . Other points used in writing and printing, partly rhetorical and partly grammatical, are the note of interrogation , the note of exclamation , the parentheses , the dash , and brackets . It was not until the 16th century that an approach was made to the present system of punctuation by the Manutii of Venice. With Caxton, oblique strokes took the place of commas and periods.

Related words: (words related to PUNCTUATION)

• WRITING
  1. The act or art of forming letters and characters on paper, wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of recording the ideas which characters and words express, or of communicating them to others by visible signs. 2. Anything written or
• PUNCTUATE
  To mark with points; to separate into sentences, clauses, etc., by points or stops which mark the proper pauses in expressing the meaning.
• DIVIDER
  An instrument for dividing lines, describing circles, etc., compasses. See Compasses. Note: The word dividers is usually applied to the instrument as made for the use of draughtsmen, etc.; compasses to the coarser instrument used by carpenters.
• DIVIDEND
  A number or quantity which is to be divided. (more info) 1. A sum of money to be divided and distributed; the share of a sum divided that falls to each individual; a distribute sum, share, or percentage; -- applied to the profits as appropriated
• WRITATIVE
  Inclined to much writing; -- correlative to talkative. Pope.
• POINT SWITCH
  A switch made up of a rail from each track, both rails being tapered far back and connected to throw alongside the through rail of either track.
• POINTLESSLY
  Without point.
• POINT-DEVICE; POINT-DEVISE
  Uncommonly nice and exact; precise; particular. You are rather point-devise in your accouterments. Shak. Thus he grew up, in logic point-devise, Perfect in grammar, and in rhetoric nice. Longfellow. (more info) + point point, condition + devis
• POINTAL
  The pistil of a plant. 2. A kind of pencil or style used with the tablets of the Middle Ages. "A pair of tablets . . . and a pointel." Chaucer.
• POINTED
  1. Sharp; having a sharp point; as, a pointed rock. 2. Characterized by sharpness, directness, or pithiness of expression; terse; epigrammatic; especially, directed to a particular person or thing. His moral pleases, not his pointed wit. Pope.
• WRITER
  1. One who writes, or has written; a scribe; a clerk. They that handle the pen of the writer. Judg. v. 14. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Ps. xlv. 1. 2. One who is engaged in literary composition as a profession; an author; as, a writer
• DISCOURSE
  fr. discurrere, discursum, to run to and fro, to discourse; dis- + 1. The power of the mind to reason or infer by running, as it were, from one fact or reason to another, and deriving a conclusion; an exercise or act of this power; reasoning; range
• ELUCIDATE
  To make clear or manifest; to render more intelligible; to illustrate; as, an example will elucidate the subject.
• POINT ALPHABET
  An alphabet for the blind with a system of raised points corresponding to letters.
• WRIT
  3d pers. sing. pres. of Write, for writeth. Chaucer.
• POINTSMAN
  A man who has charge of railroad points or switches.
• PUNCTUATIVE
  Of or belonging to points of division; relating to punctuation. The punctuative intonation of feeble cadence. Rush.
• DIVIDUOUS
  Divided; dividual. He so often substantiates distinctions into dividuous, selfsubsistent. Coleridge.
• WRITE
  to scratch, to score; akin to OS. writan to write, to tear, to wound, D. rijten to tear, to rend, G. reissen, OHG. rizan, Icel. rita to 1. To set down, as legible characters; to form the conveyance of meaning; to inscribe on any material
• WRITHLE
  To wrinkle. Shak.
• MISDEMEAN
  To behave ill; -- with a reflexive pronoun; as, to misdemean one's self.
• DEMEANURE
  Behavior. Spenser.
• SUBINDIVIDUAL
  A division of that which is individual. An individual can not branch itself into subindividuals. Milton.
• REWRITE
  To write again. Young.
• TYPEWRITING
  The act or art of using a typewriter; also, a print made with a typewriter.
• REMEANT
  Coming back; returning. "Like the remeant sun." C. Kingsley.
• COVER-POINT
  The fielder in the games of cricket and lacrosse who supports "point."
• PLAYWRITER
  A writer of plays; a dramatist; a playwright. Lecky.
• STORY-WRITER
  1. One who writes short stories, as for magazines. 2. An historian; a chronicler. "Rathums, the story-writer." 1 Esdr. ii. 17.
• UNDERWRITING
  The business of an underwriter,
• ARAMAEAN; ARAMEAN
  Of or pertaining to the Syrians and Chaldeans, or to their language; Aramaic. -- n.
• INDIVIDUALIZER
  One who individualizes.
• TROIS POINT
  The third point from the outer edge on each player's home table.