commas

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of comma.

   Too many commas can break a sentence into awkward fragments.

   The style guide explains where commas belong in a list of three or more items.

   Note

   A regular plural that serves every kind of comma, not only the punctuation mark. Naturalists count commas among the Polygonia butterflies, named for the white comma-shaped mark on the underwing. In tuning, commas are the small discrepancies that appear when nearly identical intervals are calculated in different ways. The commas of ancient rhetoric were short clauses, held in antiquity to no more than eight syllables.

2. 2
   verbrare

   Third-person singular simple present of comma.

   Note

   It is spelled exactly like the plural noun, but here it works as a verb, and a rare one. Because it is transitive, it needs an object: someone commas a list, a clause or an aside, placing the marks before, after or around it. In most writing, "adds commas" is the safer choice, and it is never wrong where the verb would be.

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