com⋅ma
[kom-uh] 
| 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.
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| 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. |
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)
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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| com·ma (kŏm'ə) n.
[Latin, from Greek komma, piece cut off, short clause, from koptein, to cut.] |
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Comma
Com"ma\, n. [L. comma part of a sentence, comma, Gr. ? clause, fr. ? to cut off. Cf. Capon.]1. A character or point [,] marking the smallest divisions of a sentence, written or printed. 2. (Mus.) A small interval (the difference between a major and minor half step), seldom used except by tuners. Comma bacillus (Physiol.), a variety of bacillus shaped like a comma, found in the intestines of patients suffering from cholera. It is considered by some as having a special relation to the disease; -- called also cholera bacillus. Comma butterfly (Zo["o]l.), an American butterfly (Grapta comma), having a white comma-shaped marking on the under side of the wings.Cite This Source
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.”
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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comma
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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)
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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
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