comma

Alternative forms

• come (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: kŏm'ə, IPA: /ˈkɒm.ə/
• (US) enPR: kŏm'-ə, IPA: /ˈkɑm.ə/

Noun

comma (plural commas or commata)

1. (typography) The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
   • Synonyms: scratch comma, virgule, (in its obsolete form as a slash) virgula, (in its obsolete form as a middot) come, (obsolete) comma-point
   • Hyponyms: comma of Didymus, inverted comma, Oxford comma, serial comma, syntonic comma
2. (Romanian typography) A similar-looking subscript diacritical mark.
3. (entomology) Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having a comma-shaped white mark on the underwings, especially Polygonia c-album and Polygonia c-aureum of North Africa, Europe, and Asia.
4. (music) A difference in the calculation of nearly identical intervals by different ways.
5. (genetics) A delimiting marker between items in a genetic sequence.
6. (rhetoric) In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a short clause, something less than a colon, originally denoted by comma marks. In antiquity it was defined as a combination of words having no more than eight syllables in all. It was later applied to longer phrases, e.g. the Johannine comma.
7. (figurative) A brief interval.

Verb

comma (third-person singular simple present commas, present participle commaing, simple past and past participle commaed)

1. (rare, transitive) To place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas.

Pronunciation

• Homophones: commas, commât

Verb

comma

1. third-person singular past historic of commer

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkɔm.ma/
• Syllabification: còm‧ma

Noun

comma m (plural commi)

1. (law) subsection, subparagraph
   • ll secondo comma dell'articolo 3

     • the second subparagraph of article 3
2. (music) comma

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA: /ˈkom.ma/, [ˈkɔmːä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA: /ˈkom.ma/, [ˈkɔmːä]

Noun

comma n (genitive commatis); third declension

1. (in grammar):
   1. a comma (adivision,member, orsection of aperiod smaller than acolon)
   2. a comma (a mark of punctuation)
2. (in verse) a caesura