comma

Pluralcommas

Formscommas, commaing, commaed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A punctuation mark (,) used to mark off parts of a sentence and to separate the elements of a list.

   Editors insert a comma to set off a clause that interrupts the main sentence.

   In a series of three or more items, a comma separates each one.

   Note

   A mark named for a cut: the word came through Latin from Greek kómma, from kóptō, "I cut". Richard Thomson, writing in 1828, describes printers who at first had only the colon and the period, then introduced a short oblique stroke called a virgil that answered to the modern comma. Virgule and virgula are older names for the mark, and comma-point an obsolete one. The everyday plural is commas; commata is rare.

2. 2
   noundialectalRomaniancountable

   A diacritical mark resembling a comma, placed beneath a base letter, as in the Romanian letters ș and ț.

   Romanian places a comma beneath the s to write a distinct consonant.

   Typesetters must take care not to replace the comma below with a cedilla.

   Note

   Typographers often call this mark the comma below, which keeps it apart from the cedilla, a hook that hangs from a letter in much the same place. In Romanian the distinction is not cosmetic: ș and ț take the comma, and setting them with a cedilla instead is exactly the slip careful typesetters watch for.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Polygonia, marked by a white comma-shaped spot on the underwings and found across North Africa, Europe, and Asia.

   The comma overwinters as an adult, hidden among fallen leaves until spring.

   Gardeners welcome the comma, whose caterpillars feed on nettles and hops.

   Note

   Butterfly watchers have a punctuation pair. In North America the eastern comma, Polygonia comma, shares its range with the question mark, Polygonia interrogationis, from the Gulf Coast to Canada and west to the Rockies, and both are burnt orange and black. Field guides often capitalize them as species names, writing of Commas and Question Marks side by side.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A small difference between two nearly identical musical intervals that result from different methods of tuning.

   Equal temperament spreads the comma evenly so that every key sounds acceptable.

   Singers without a fixed instrument can adjust their pitch to avoid the comma altogether.

   Note

   Tuning theory's word for what is left over when the arithmetic refuses to close. Stack twelve perfect fifths and you overshoot seven octaves by a sliver of pitch, the Pythagorean comma, though in principle the two should meet. Musicians speak of tempering, spreading or avoiding a comma. The word only makes sense when two routes to the 'same' note are compared within a tuning system.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A delimiting mark used to separate items in a written genetic sequence, such as the two alleles of a genotype.

   The notation uses a comma to divide the maternal and paternal alleles.

   Each variant in the summary is set off by a comma for clarity.

6. 6
   nounrhetoriccountable

   In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a short clause briefer than a colon, originally limited to no more than eight syllables and later extended to longer phrases.

   Each comma in the oration delivered one sharp idea before the next began.

   A teacher of rhetoric trained students to balance a comma against the longer colon that followed.

   Note

   The Greek "cut" behind the punctuation mark is close to literal here: a comma was a short piece cut from the flow of speech, a step below the colon. Marks were first used to show where these units fell, which is how the punctuation got its name. Johannine comma, a term from New Testament textual criticism, keeps the old sense alive for a passage far longer than eight syllables.

7. 7
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A brief interval in time, a short pause before something resumes.

   The applause faded for a comma, then swelled again.

   Her silence was just a comma in the conversation, not a full stop.

   Similarpause, break, lull, interval

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