punctuation
noun
Simple meaning
The marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
puhngkchooayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pəŋktʃuˈeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases
The use of certain marks to clarify meaning of written material by grouping words grammatically into sentences and clauses and phrases
An act of punctuating.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases
Used this way, punctuation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.