Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use punctuation in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Punctuation means a set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses, phrases and sentences; examples include commas, hyphens, and stops (periods). Example: “Different languages have different rules for punctuation.”

Examples of punctuation by meaning

nounA set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses...

  • Different languages have different rules for punctuation.

More sentences with punctuation

  • Let’s make sure we don’t forget proper punctuation, let's not let those mistakes happen again.From the entry let's
  • A strong password has a mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.From the entry password
  • My editor is very finicky about punctuation. Every dot and comma has to be just right.From the entry finicky
  • It really ticks me off when people don't use proper punctuation.From the entry tick off
  • Why do you always have to make such a big deal of tiny punctuation errors?From the entry big deal
  • Some dictionaries list hyphenated words as though they contained no punctuation.From the entry hyphenated
  • “I appreciate your curiosity,” Oliver answers in hurried monotone without inflection or pauses for punctuation.2025 August 4, Dara Kerr, “Jim Acosta interviews ‘made-up’ AI avatar of Parkland victim Joaquin Oliver”, in The Guardian. From the entry oliver
  • Since its inception the apostrophe has been a controversial piece of punctuation.2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 30. From the entry apostrophe
  • The following two examples are both more than 40 characters in length and contain no punctuation.2020, Clara Ho-yan Chan, “Challenges in legal translation: a language perspective”, in Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in…. From the entry underpunctuation
  • The most common item of punctuation was the punctus or point.2011 July 22, Tadao Kudouchi, edited by Akio Oizumi and Jacek Fisiak, English Historical Linguistics and Philology in Japan, De Gruyter…. From the entry punctus
  • Letters and punctuation are nothing but code for our thoughts and ideas.2009 November 30, Mary Elizabeth Williams, “Death to Smiley”, in Salon. From the entry stabby
  • Surprisingly, however, punctuation marks are five times more frequent in emails than in linked messages.2008, Linguistic Insights (ISSN 14248689), volume 58, Carmen Frehner, “Email – SMS – MMS: The Linguistic Creativity of Asynchronous…. From the entry snatchier
  • There was little or no punctuation, and there were no diacritics.2004, Letter Arts Review, volume 19, Norman, Okla.: Calligraphy Review, →OCLC, page 37. From the entry unicameral
  • Punctuation is important in all types of writing, but it is mandatory in international documents.2003, Larry Newman, “International Proposals”, in Shipley Associates Proposal Guide for Business Development Professionals, 2nd edition…. From the entry overpunctuate
  • Without punctuation, the probability of the evaluator getting lost increases dramatically.2003, Larry Newman, “International Proposals”, in Shipley Associates Proposal Guide for Business Development Professionals, 2nd edition…. From the entry overpunctuate
  • Make prior decisions regarding treatment of such factors as spelling, penpersonship, and punctuation.2000, W. James Popham, Modern Educational Measurement: Practical Guidelines for Educational Leaders, 3rd edition, Allyn and Bacon, →ISBN…. From the entry penpersonship
  • In the sacerdotal prayers in col. a the punctuation is by punctus flexus, punctus elevatus and punctus.1993, Malcolm Beckwith Parkes, Pause and Effect, Plates and Commentaries, page 197. From the entry punctus
  • “Take that” was the punctuation of a hero's fist or bullet.1992, Confrontation, numbers 48-50, page 38. From the entry there's more where that came from
  • The speller catches double words, capitalization errors, and simple punctuation errors, such as double periods.1990, InfoWorld, volume 12, page 111. From the entry near-antonym
  • These accent letter codes and punctuation codes are represented by two characters.1988, Don Chapman, Alan K Melby, “MicroMATER”, in Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium, volume 14, number 1, page 67. From the entry enyay
  • This is found also in early codices, together with a middle point, which serves for lighter punctuation.1980, Berthold Louis Ullman, Ancient Writing and its Influence, University of Toronto Press, page 213. From the entry low point
  • Therefore, errors of punctuation cannot be considered a type of deafism.1978, Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal, volumes 11-12, page 6. From the entry deafism
  • The quarto's punctuation and lineation, however, are much less reliable than its language.1966, Lawrence J. Ross, “Introduction”, in Cyril Tourneur [now thought to be by Thomas Middleton], edited by Lawrence J. Ross, The…. From the entry question mark
  • The pilcrow was a simple punctuation symbol used by medieval scribes to indicate the start and end of a paragraph.2021, Claire Cock-Starkey, Hyphens & Hashtags, Bodleian Library, page 167. From the entry pilcrow
  • Introduce the notion of combining punctuation marks in new ways.2014, John Senior, “Idea 79: The Interabang!?”, in 100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Gifted and Talented, London: Bloomsbury Education…. From the entry interrobang
  • The debate about "logical punctuation" suggests two things.2011 May 19, David Marsh, “'The British style'? 'The American way?' They are not so different”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian Media…. From the entry logical quotation
  • Bareia is written at the beginning and ending of the word ελεγον, followed by a raised dot of punctuation.2008, Stanley E. Porter, Wendy J. Porter, editors, New Testament Greek Papyri and Parchments: New Editions: Texts, Berlin: Walter de…. From the entry bareia
  • The rule against multiple punctuation around a closing quote is fairly clearly stated and to me quite persuasive.2003 September 14, Bob Cunningham, “punctuation with abbreviation ending a quotation”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet), archived from the…. From the entry full-stopped
  • Punctuation in modern Greek is basically the same as for the languages using the Latin alphabet, with two main exceptions.2003, Richard Gillam, Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer's Guide to the Encoding Standard, Addison-Wesley, page 240. From the entry ano teleia
  • There's upside down punctuation, no C cedille, no enyay.2002 July 23, Silvan, “strange keyboard behavior”, in alt.os.linux.mandrake (Usenet). From the entry enyay
  • But instances of indiscriminate employment of the marks of punctuation are also too numerous to be enumerated exhaustively.1995, Ajay Mitra Shastri, Inscriptions of the Śarabhapurīyas, Pāṇḍuvaṁśins, and Somavaṁśins: Introduction, Motilal Banarsidass…. From the entry double danda
  • The delimitative devices or 'punctuation marks' here have the same type of structure as the other plerematic signs.1983, Florian Coulmas, Konrad Ehlich, Writing in Focus, →ISBN, page 52. From the entry plerematic
  • The punctuation of the letters and the capitalization which was a trademark remain as they appear in the copy texts.1973, Terence Tobin, Letters of George Ade, page 12. From the entry underpunctuate
  • Similarly, lines five and six, in the punctuation adopted, imply that the states of desire and undesire are antithetical.1969, Max Kaltenmark, Lao Tzu and Taoism. From the entry undesire
  • Inspect the punctuation of the whole composition.1939, W[alter] W[ilbur] Hatfield, Senior English Activities, Boston, Mass.; Atlanta, Ga.; Dallas, Tex.; San Francisco, Calif.: American…. From the entry underpunctuation
  • The oblique dash in punctuation is freely used.1934, E.E. Rich, The Staple Court Books of Bristol, page vi. From the entry oblique dash
  • Make your sentence constructions so clear that it will be possible for you to keep punctuation at a minimum.1925, Henry Seidel Canby, John Baker Opdycke, Good English: Book Two: The Elements of Composition, The Macmillan Company, page 163. From the entry underpunctuate
  • This means that quoted information does not include any trailing punctuation if the punctuation is not part of the material being quoted.2015 September 19 [1999], David A. Wheeler, Secure Programming HOWTO – Creating Secure Software, version 3.72, retrieved 23 Sep 2015. From the entry logical quotation
  • Explain the Interabang and its use as a nonstandard punctuation mark intended to combine the functions of the question mark and the exclamation mark.2014, John Senior, “Idea 79: The Interabang!?”, in 100 Ideas for Secondary Teachers: Gifted and Talented, London: Bloomsbury Education…. From the entry interrobang

Meaning of punctuation

  1. noun A set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses, phrases and sentences; examples include commas, hyphens, and stops (periods).
  2. noun Nikud.
  3. noun An act of punctuating.

Full definition of punctuation

Questions about punctuation in a sentence

How do you use punctuation in a sentence?
Punctuation is used as a noun. For example: “Different languages have different rules for punctuation.”
What is a short sentence with punctuation?
“Different languages have different rules for punctuation.”
What does punctuation mean?
Punctuation means a set of symbols and marks which are used to clarify meaning in text by separating strings of words into clauses, phrases and sentences; examples include commas, hyphens, and stops (periods).

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punctuation (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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Cite this page: “How to use punctuation in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/punctuation. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.