comma
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comma
- /ˈkɒmə/ Canada, UK
- /ˈkɔmə/ Australia, British, Southern
- [ˈkɑ.mə ~ ˈkɑ.mʌ] Atlantic Canada, US
- /ˈkɔmɑ/ South Asia
- /kəˈmɑ/ dialectal
Where it comes from
From Latin comma, from Ancient Greek κόμμα (kómma), from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”).
noun commas · commata · commaes · come
-
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 typographic
Similar: scratch comma, virgule, virgula, come, comma-point
- 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, distin
- 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.
- A cloud shaped like a comma because of differential rotation of the cloud border and adjacent upward and downward vertical motions, often appearing in large and intense low-pressure systems. Satellite images on Monday morning revealed the textbook “comma cloud” shape of a powerful nor’easter. The storm’s long tail stretches south through the Florida peninsula, while the main “head” of the comma churns over the Northeastern United States, where the most severe conditions have been unfold
verb commas · commaing · commaed · comma'd
- To place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas.
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: comma butterfly, polygonia comma, semicolon, colon, paragraph, subparagraph, decimal, point, semi-colon, syntonic, party, sentence, indent, stroke, dele, coma
Translations
Every language
noun punctuation mark ','
| Español | coma |
|---|---|
| 한국어 | 쉼표 swimpyo, 콤마 komma |
| 日本語 | コンマ konma, 読点 tōten |
| 中文 | 逗號 /逗号 dòuhào, 逗點 /逗点 dòudiǎn, 頓號 /顿号 dùnhào |
| हिन्दी | अल्पविराम alpavirām, कामा kāmā |
| Kiswahili | alama ya mkato, koma |
| Português | vírgula |
| Français | virgule |
| Deutsch | Beistrich, Komma |
| Italiano | virgola |
| Ελληνικά | κόμμα kómma |
| Română | virgulă |
| Русский | запята́я zapjatája |
| Tiếng Việt | phẩy |
| العربية | فَصْلَة faṣla, فَاصِلَة fāṣila, شَوْلَة šawla, فارِزَة fāriza, ، |
| עברית | פְּסִיק psik |
noun butterfly
| Deutsch | C-Falter |
|---|
noun very small musical interval as the difference resulting from tuning one note two different ways
| Español | coma |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | コンマ konma |
| 中文 | 音差 |
| Français | comma |
| Deutsch | Komma |
| Italiano | comma |
| Русский | комма komma |
verb to place a comma
| Français | virguler |
|---|
Talk about this word "comma." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/comma. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. comma. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/comma "comma." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/comma.Cite this
@misc{comma_2026,
title = {comma},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/comma},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
