Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use colon in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Colon means the punctuation mark ⟨:⟩. Example: “He was a sloppy punctuator, often leaving out commas and confusing colons with semicolons.”

Examples of colon by meaning

nounThe punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.

  • A colon tells the reader that what follows is closely related to the preceding clause.2005, William Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, Penguin Press, page 15

nounPart of the large intestine; the final segment of the digestive system, after (distal to) the ileum and before...

  • Colorectal cancer refers to colon cancer, which starts in the colon, and rectal cancer, which starts in the rectum.2025 March 21, Katia Hetter, “Reduce your risk of colon and rectal cancer with these basic steps”, in CNN

nounA European colonial settler, especially in a French colony.

  • The reaction of the European colons, a mixture of shock and fear, was to demand further draconian measures and to suspend any suggestion of new reforms.1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York: Review Books, published 2006, page 28

More sentences with colon

  • He was a sloppy punctuator, often leaving out commas and confusing colons with semicolons.From the entry punctuator
  • I need a partial colectomy, where part of the colon is removed.2021, Dr Philippa Kaye, Doctors Get Cancer Too, Vie Books, page 30. From the entry colectomy
  • My stress and frustration resulted in a spastic colon and the need for weeks of medication.2017, Velvel Pasternak, Behind the Music, Stories, Anecdotes, Articles and Reflections, page 44. From the entry on the mend
  • Proctosigmoidoscopy is endoscopic examination of the lining of the distal sigmoid colon, rectum and rectal canal.2014, Gayle McKenzie, Clinical Companion: Medical-Surgical Nursing, page 228. From the entry proctosigmoidoscopy
  • The conversion of arginine to putrescine by Enterococcus faecalis and E. coli is an example of syntrophism.2013, S. Srivastava, Understanding Bacteria, page 307. From the entry syntrophism
  • Escherichia coli has been isolated from jirds that have died of septicemia.2012, Stephen A. Felt, Nancy L. Merrill, Fady I. Guirguis, Hussein I. Hussein, “Chapter 53: Egyptian Fat-Tailed Jird”, in Mark A. Suckow…. From the entry jird
  • Colon A ("By day the sun will not strike you") makes sense, given the strong Mediterranean sun.2005, Marc Zvi Brettler, How to Read the Bible, Jewish Publication Society, →ISBN, page 165. From the entry moonburn
  • Second, the Greek colon or semicolon (the ano teleia) is a single centered dot (·).2003, Richard Gillam, Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer's Guide to the Encoding Standard, Addison-Wesley, page 240. From the entry ano teleia
  • The raised point (·) may signify English comma, semicolon, or colon.2001, James M. Efird, A Grammar for New Testament Greek, Wipf & Stock Publishers, page 5. From the entry raised point
  • If the disease proves severe, the colon or a portion of it can be removed.1987, “Colon and colitis”, in Trevor Weston, editor, The Complete Illustrated Book of Family Health, Toronto: York Press, →ISBN, page 93. From the entry salazopyrin
  • Five of the strains of E. coli are related to only one of the S. dysenteriae strains.1939 January, Thomas T. Mackie, “The Specificity of the Agglutinin Reaction for Shigella dysenteriae: II. Agglutinin Absorption…. From the entry coli
  • The image shows phage λ bound to its maltoporin receptor LamB on the E.coli membrane during DNA ejection.2015 July 22, “Subscriptions”, in Nucleic Acids Research, volume 43, →DOI. From the entry maltoporin
  • A selective COX-2 inhibitor, etoricoxib, was reported to reduce the expression of NF-κB protein and inhibit DMH-induced colon ACF in rats.2015 July 14, Li Zhang, Handong Wang, Orazio Taglialatela-Scafati, “Multiple Mechanisms of Anti-Cancer Effects Exerted by Astaxanthin”, in…. From the entry etoricoxib
  • Division of splenocolic and gastrocolic ligaments from left to right completed splenic flexure mobilization releasing the distal third of transverse colon.2015 July 7, Andrea Pisani Ceretti et al., “Laparoscopic colonic resection for splenic flexure cancer: our experience”, in BMC…. From the entry splenocolic
  • Thus far, detailed studies determining the neurochemical codes of the two subplexuses in the porcine and human colon are scarce.2015 August 1, “Architecture and Chemical Coding of the Inner and Outer Submucous Plexus in the Colon of Piglets”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI. From the entry subplexuses
  • Using an alcohol enema involves placing a small tube into someone’s rectum and pouring alcohol into the colon.2012 September 26, Jacque Wilson, “Experts: Alcohol enemas ‘extremely dangerous’”, in CNN. From the entry rectum
  • Take away the start time minutes from the end time minutes and write down the number in front of a colon.2012, Colin Beveridge, Basic Maths Practice Problems For Dummies, page 31. From the entry start time
  • The locations of the taeniae are useful landmarks and are specific in relation to the position of the colon itself.2006, Richard L. Drake, “Chapter 128: Anatomy of the Colon”, in Josef E. Fischer, Kirby I. Bland, Mark P. Callery, editors, Mastery of…. From the entry taenia
  • Each taenia traverses one of the following surfaces of the colon: the anterior surface, the posteroinferior surface, and the posterosuperior surface.2004, Janice C. Colwell, Fecal and Urinary Diversions: Management and Principles, page 49. From the entry taenia
  • The frequency of segmenting contractions is higher in the descending and sigmoid colon than in more orad areas.2001, Leonard R. Johnson, Gastrointestinal Physiology, page 63. From the entry orad
  • After a preliminary course in anatomy it was found that caecum and transverse colon also provided excellent sites for excitation.1970, J. G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition. From the entry caecum
  • Percentage survival curves of an inocular of a laboratory culture of E. coli into seawater collected in August .1970, Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Technical Report - Volumes 215-219. From the entry inocular
  • Similarly a fæcolith may become impacted in the pelvic colon.1916, Guy’s Hospital Gazette, page 207. From the entry fæcolith
  • Residue identities are marked with an asterisk, conserved substitutions are marked with a colon, and semiconserved substitutions are marked with a period.2015 September 19, “Serine 363 of a Hydrophobic Region of Archaeal Ribulose 1,5-Bisphosphate Carboxylase/Oxygenase from Archaeoglobus…. From the entry semiconserved
  • For example, attachment of oligohistidine tags to the periplasmic termini of membrane proteins often interferes with folding and drastically impairs expression in Escherichia coli.2015 November 26, “A Versatile Strategy for Production of Membrane Proteins with Diverse Topologies: Application to Investigation of…. From the entry oligohistidine
  • In the case of the gut, three 1-cm sections were pooled from the proximal colon, the midcolon region, and the rectum of each mouse.2015 May 26, Amanda Fortes Francisco et al., “Limited Ability of Posaconazole To Cure both Acute and Chronic Trypanosoma cruzi Infections…. From the entry midcolon
  • Anyway, they did the operation, removed a huge lump, resectioned my colon, and gave me the news that they thought that the tumour hadn't spread.2014, Tim Bell, Right or Wrong: The Memoirs of Lord Bell, →ISBN, page 183. From the entry resection
  • Why then do I feel all stabby when I get a message that ends with three short marks: a colon, a hyphen and a parenthesis?2009 November 30, Mary Elizabeth Williams, “Death to Smiley”, in Salon. From the entry stabby
  • He was the inventor of the procedure for flexible sigmoidoscopy using insufflation (inflating the sigmoid colon with air) that still is practiced today.2004, Daniel B. Silver, Refuge in Hell: How Berlin's Jewish Hospital Outlasted the Nazis, page 83. From the entry insufflation
  • Therefore, patients with ulcerative colitis should ideally be treated before they become emergent cases with toxic megacolon or perforation of the colon.1987, Navy Medicine, page 8. From the entry emergent
  • The rod-shaped E. coli phages share a common host range with the RNA-containing E. coli phages, a coincidence which probably unites unrelated viruses.1965, “Small Bacteriophages”, in Advances in Virus Research, volumes 1-11, pages 343–4. From the entry rod-shaped
  • The presence of bismuth diasporal during the irradiation with x-rays of cultures of bacteria (B. coli and B. prodigiosus) inhibits the growth of the bacteria.1928, International Surgical Digest, Hagerstown, Md.: W. F. Prior Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 33, column 1. From the entry diasporal
  • Lenox Hill finds “considerable stool material in the descending colon as well as the rectosigmoid region.” My doctor diagnoses a combination of slow transit and outlet constipation.2022 October 2, Cara Schacter, “My Year of Stress and Constipation”, in The New York Times. From the entry rectosigmoid
  • The epithelial cell lines were mIC c12, a transimmortalised murine colon enterocyte cell line that shows many of the characteristics of a primary epithelial cell line, and HeLa cells.2016 March 2, “A Comparison of the ATP Generating Pathways Used by S . Typhimurium to Fuel Replication within Human and Murine Macrophage…. From the entry transimmortalised
  • The colon can also become occupied by the viscoid material, leading to meconium ileus equivalent syndrome, which resembles meconium ileus and predominantly affects the cecum and ascending colon.2014, Giles W.L. Boland, Gastrointestinal Imaging: The Requisites (The Requisites in Radiology series), 4th edition, Elsevier, →ISBN, page…. From the entry viscoid
  • Contractions of the haustrae (sacculations in the wall of the colon formed by the arrangement of circular muscle fibers) move material in a retrograde manner to the cecum.2012, Peter R. Cheeke, Rabbit Feeding and Nutrition, →ISBN, page 25. From the entry haustrae
  • Some patients may need assistance with defaecation in the form of suppositories or enemata, whilst others may need a colostomy as a result of cancer of the colon.2010, Ian Peate, Nursing Care and the Activities of Living, page 148. From the entry enemata

Meaning of colon

  1. noun The punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.
  2. noun The triangular colon (especially in context of not being able to type the actual triangular colon).
  3. noun A rhetorical figure consisting of a clause which is grammatically, but not logically, complete.

Full definition of colon

Questions about colon in a sentence

How do you use colon in a sentence?
Colon is used as a noun. For example: “He was a sloppy punctuator, often leaving out commas and confusing colons with semicolons.”
What is a short sentence with colon?
“Similarly a fæcolith may become impacted in the pelvic colon.”
What does colon mean?
Colon means the punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: colon (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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