Dictionary
Thesaurus
Encyclopedia
Translator
Web
Related Searches
Synonyms
Nearby Words

comma

 - 7 dictionary results

com⋅ma

  [kom-uh]
Use comma in a Sentence
–noun
1. the sign (,), a mark of punctuation used for indicating a division in a sentence, as in setting off a word, phrase, or clause, esp. when such a division is accompanied by a slight pause or is to be noted in order to give order to the sequential elements of the sentence. It is also used to separate items in a list, to mark off thousands in numerals, to separate types or levels of information in bibliographic and other data, and, in Europe, as a decimal point.
2. Classical Prosody.
a. a fragment or smaller section of a colon.
b. the part of dactylic hexameter beginning or ending with the caesura.
c. the caesura itself.
3. Music. the minute, virtually unheard difference in pitch between two enharmonic tones, as G♯ and A♭.
4. any of several nymphalid butterflies, as Polygonia comma, having a comma-shaped silver mark on the underside of each hind wing.
Origin:
1520–30; < LL: mark of punctuation, L: division of a phrase < Gk kómma piece cut off (referring to the phrase so marked), equiv. to kop- (base of kóptein to strike, chop) + -ma n. suffix denoting result of action (with assimilation of p)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To comma
com·ma   (kŏm'ə)   
n.  

  1. Grammar A punctuation mark ( , ) used to indicate a separation of ideas or of elements within the structure of a sentence.

  2. A pause or separation; a caesura.

  3. Any of several butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having wings with brownish coloring and irregularly notched edges.


[Latin, from Greek komma, piece cut off, short clause, from koptein, to cut.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Cultural Dictionary

comma

A punctuation mark (,) used to indicate pauses and to separate elements within a sentence. “The forest abounds with oak, elm, and beech trees”; “The bassoon player was born in Roanoke, Virginia, on December 29, 1957.”

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Word Origin & History

comma 
1586, "short phrase," from L. comma, from Gk. komma "clause in a sentence," lit. "piece which is cut off," from koptein "to cut off," from PIE base *(s)kep- "to cut, split." Like colon, period, a Gk. rhetorical term for part of a sentence which has been transferred to the punctuation mark that identifies it. Used as such in Eng. as a L. word from 1530; nativized by 1599.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Computing Dictionary

Comma project
COMputable MAthematics.
An ESPRIT project at KU Nijmegen.
(1994-11-30)

comma character
"," ASCII character 44. Common names: ITU-T: comma. Rare: ITU-T: cedilla; INTERCAL: tail.
In the C programming language, "," is an operator which evaluates its first argument (which presumably has side-effects) and then returns the value of its second argument. This is useful in "for" statements and macros.
(1995-03-10)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
Cite This Source
Encyclopedia

comma

in music, slight difference in frequency (and therefore pitch) occurring when a note of a scale, say E in the scale of C, is derived according to different systems of tuning. There are two commonly cited commas, the Pythagorean comma and the comma of Didymus, or syntonic comma

Learn more about comma with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Cite This Source
Search another word or see comma on Thesaurus | Reference
FacebookTwitterFollow us:
Partner Sites:
Ask AnswersEviteExpediaHotelsHotwireLife123LiveDailyMy Way