Word.ws English Dictionary

positura

UK/pɒzɪˈtjʊəɹə/US/pɑzəˈtʊəɹə/

positura noun: a stroke added to a medieval punctus; a punctuation mark created by addition of such a stroke.

Noun

positura (plural positurae)

  1. A stroke added to a medieval punctus; a punctuation mark created by addition of such a stroke.
    • The positurae mark those pauses in the text which require the celebrant to inflect the recitation tone[…]1993, Malcolm Beckwith Parkes, Pause and Effect, Plates and Commentaries, page 197
    • The positurae thus indicated not only the "appropriate melodic formula", but also a pause and therefore a rhythmical and syntactic break which it is the primary function of punctuation to mark.2011 July 22, Tadao Kudouchi, edited by Akio Oizumi and Jacek Fisiak, English Historical Linguistics and Philology in Japan, De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 172

Forms of positura

pluralpositurae

Origin of positura

From Medieval Latin positūra, feminine noun formed from positūrus (“about to place”). Doublet of posture.

Questions about positura

What does positura mean?
Positura means a stroke added to a medieval punctus; a punctuation mark created by addition of such a stroke.
What part of speech is positura?
Positura is a noun.
How do you pronounce positura?
Positura is pronounced /pɒzɪˈtjʊəɹə/ (UK).
What is the plural of positura?
The plural of positura is positurae.

Words near positura in the dictionary

  1. positronium
  2. positronium hydride
  3. positroniums
  4. positrons
  5. posits
  6. positura
  7. positurae
  8. positure
  9. positures
  10. positutely
  11. POSIWID

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: positura (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.

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