Word.ws English Dictionary

punctums

punctums is the plural of punctum.

Meaning of punctum

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

Questions about punctums

What is punctums the plural of?
Punctums is the plural of punctum.

Words near punctums in the dictionary

  1. punctum remotum
  2. punctum saliens
  3. punctum stans
  4. punctum vasculosum
  5. punctum vegetationis
  6. punctums
  7. puncturable
  8. puncturation
  9. puncturations
  10. puncture
  11. puncture vine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punctums (page history and authors); punctum (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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Cite this entry: “punctums.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/punctums. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.