Word.ws English Dictionary

punctum

punctum noun: a sharp tip of any part of the anatomy; a point or other small area.

punctum: a sharp tip of any part of the anatomy; a point or other small area
Image: Pierdeux, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

punctum (plural punctums or puncta)

  1. A sharp tip of any part of the anatomy; a point or other small area.
    • Thus, from what has been stated, we see that neither the white puncta nor the minute white branchwork of lines were ever tubular.1861, The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Zoology, Botany, and Geology
  2. A neume representing a single tone.

Noun (2)

punctum (plural punctums or puncta)

  1. A detail in a photograph that captures the viewer's attention and evokes an emotional response or personal connection beyond the intended subject.
    • […]the punctum is something that is seen by the viewer, without it being shown to them by the photographer. As such, it functions, according to Fried, as an “ontological guarantee” (553) of a given photograph’s nontheatricality.2007, Photography theory, page 87
    • Barthes describes the punctum (the nonconnotative or denotative meaning) of the photograph (or movie still) in such a manner; the detail relevant or not relevant to the image's overall meaning becomes the focus of an otherwise forgettable picture […]2012, Jeff Rice, Digital Detroit: Rhetoric and Space in the Age of the Network, page 160

punctum meaning in Tamil

punctum in Tamil

ஊசி முனை உரு, ஓட்டை, கட்டி உச்சி, சிறுபுள்ளி, துளை, பொட்டுகள்

Forms of punctum

pluralpunctums
pluralpuncta

Origin of punctum

From Latin pūnctum. Doublet of point, pointe, ponto, puncto, punt, and punto.

Coined in 1980 by French literary theorist Roland Barthes in his book Camera Lucida.

Words formed from punctum

Questions about punctum

What does punctum mean?
Punctum means a sharp tip of any part of the anatomy; a point or other small area.
What is punctum in Tamil?
Punctum in Tamil is ஊசி முனை உரு, ஓட்டை, கட்டி உச்சி. See Punctum meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is punctum?
Punctum is a noun.
What is the plural of punctum?
The plural of punctum is punctums.

Words near punctum in the dictionary

  1. punctulating
  2. punctulation
  3. punctulations
  4. punctule
  5. punctules
  6. punctum
  7. punctum caecum
  8. punctum delens
  9. punctum proximum
  10. punctum remotum
  11. punctum saliens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punctum (page history and authors); punctum (Tamil 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:

Cite this entry: “punctum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/punctum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.