comma
UK/ˈkɒmə/
More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations
Australia/ˈkɔmə/
comma noun: the punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
Noun
comma (plural commas or (rare) commata or (obsolete) commaes)
- 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...1828, Richard Thomson, Illustrations of the History of Great Britain, Vol. II, pp. 145–6
- Synonyms:
- 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...2004, Scott Shalaway, “Close-ups”, in Butterflies in the Backyard, Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 18
- Other members of this genus that are frequently encountered in the park are the eastern comma (P. comma) and question mark (P. interrogationis).2013, Ann Simpson, Rob Simpson, “Butterflies and Moths”, in Nature Guide to Shenandoah National Park (Falcon Pocket Guide), Guilford, Conn.; Helena, Mont.: Falcon Guides, Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN...
- 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
comma (third-person singular simple present commas, present participle commaing, simple past and past participle commaed or comma'd)
comma meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
comma in Hindi
- punctuation mark ','
- अल्पविराम alpavirām, कामा kāmā
comma in Tamil
- punctuation mark ','
- காற்புள்ளி kāṟpuḷḷi
comma in Urdu
- punctuation mark ','
- کاما kāmā, سَکْتَہ sakta, ،
comma in Bengali
- punctuation mark ','
- কমা koma
More languagesFewer languages
- comma in Malayalam
- അല്പവിരാമം alpavirāmaṁ
- comma in Kannada
- ಅರೆತಡೆ, ತಡೆ ಗುರುತು
- comma in Pashto
- کامه kāma, وېرګول wirgul, ،
- comma in Tagalog
- kuwit
- comma in Arabic
- فَصْلَة faṣla, فَاصِلَة fāṣila, شَوْلَة šawla, فارِزَة fāriza
- comma in Malay
- koma
- comma in Indonesian
- koma
- comma in Persian
- ویرْگول virgul, واوَک vâvak, دِرَنْگنَما derang-namâ, کاما kâmâ
- comma in Thai
- จุลภาค jun-lá-pâak, ลูกน้ำ lûuk-náam, จุดลูกน้ำ jùt-lûuk-náam
- comma in Vietnamese
- phẩy
- comma in Myanmar
- ပုဒ်ကလေး pudka.le:, ၊, ကော်မာ kauma
Examples of comma in a sentence
- The new editor can gum up your article with too many commas.
- My editor is very finicky about punctuation. Every dot and comma has to be just right.
- A comma-delimited file has commas as the delimiter, separating each field of the file.
Synonyms of comma
Forms of comma
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | commas |
| plural (rare) | commata |
| plural (obsolete) | commaes |
| alternative form (obsolete) | come |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | commas |
| present participle | commaing |
| past participle | commaed |
| past | commaed |
| past participle | comma'd |
| past | comma'd |
Origin of comma
From Latin comma, from Ancient Greek κόμμα (kómma), from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”).
Words formed from comma
Phrases with comma
- comma queens
- Oxford comma
- serial comma
- comma bacilli
- comma splices
- scratch comma
- inverted comma
- syntonic comma
- Comma Johanneum
- Johannine Comma
- comma categories
- comma of Didymus
1 more phrasesFewer phrases
Questions about comma
- What does comma mean?
- Comma means the punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
- What is comma in Hindi?
- Comma in Hindi is अल्पविराम (alpavirām), कामा (kāmā). See Comma meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is comma?
- Comma can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce comma?
- Comma is pronounced /ˈkɒmə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of comma?
- The plural of comma is commas.
Words near comma in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: comma (page history and authors); comma (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-comma.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-comma.wav.
Cite this entry: “comma.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/comma. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.