underpunctuate
underpunctuate verb: to punctuate insufficiently.
Verb
underpunctuate (third-person singular simple present underpunctuates, present participle underpunctuating, simple past and past participle underpunctuated)
- To punctuate insufficiently.
- Do not overpunctuate; it is much easier than to underpunctuate. The general tendency nowadays is to make punctuation less copious than formerly.1893, John F[ranklin] Genung, “The Sentence”, in Outlines of Rhetoric Embodied in Rules, Illustrative Examples, and a Progressive Course of Prose Composition, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.; Chicago...
- Do not overpunctuate. But do not underpunctuate. 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
Antonyms of underpunctuate
Forms of underpunctuate
| third-person singular present | underpunctuates |
|---|---|
| present participle | underpunctuating |
| past participle | underpunctuated |
| past | underpunctuated |
Origin of underpunctuate
From under- + punctuate.
Questions about underpunctuate
- What does underpunctuate mean?
- Underpunctuate means to punctuate insufficiently.
- What part of speech is underpunctuate?
- Underpunctuate is a verb.
- What is the past tense of underpunctuate?
- The past tense of underpunctuate is underpunctuated.
Words near underpunctuate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: underpunctuate (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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