punctuation : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: punctuation	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for punctuation
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
punctuation n something that makes repeated and regular interruptions or divisions the marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases Synonym(s): punctuation, punctuation mark the use of certain marks to clarify meaning of written material by grouping words grammatically into sentences and clauses and phrases
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Punctuation \Punc`tua"tion\, n. [Cf. F. ponctuation.] (Gram.) 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.