punctuate

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin pūnctuātus, perfect passive participle of pūnctuō (“to mark with points”), from Medieval Latin pūnctus (“a point, dot”), from pungō (“to prick, punch”); see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Doublet of punch.

Pronunciation

• • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpʰʌŋktjuːeɪt/

    • Audio (Southern England):

      (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): [ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪt], [ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪʔ]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

punctuate (third-person singular simple present punctuates, present participle punctuating, simple past and past participle punctuated)

1. (transitive) To add punctuation to. [from 1675]

   That occurrence of "its" needs to be punctuated as "it's".

2. (transitive) To add or to interrupt at regular intervals. [from 1848]

   My father punctuated his tirade with thumps on the desk.

   • 2020 October 15, Frank Pasquale, “‘Machines set loose to slaughter’: the dangerous rise of military AI”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Most soldiers would testify that the everyday experience of war is long stretches of boredom punctuated by sudden, terrifying spells of disorder.

3. (transitive) To emphasize; to stress. [from 1883]

Derived terms

• interpunctuate
• mispunctuate
• overpunctuate
• punctuatable
• punctuative
• punctuator
• repunctuate
• underpunctuate
• unpunctuate

Related terms

• point
• punch
• punctilious
• punctual
• punctuality
• punctuation

Translations

add punctuation to

• Catalan: puntuar (ca)
• French: ponctuer (fr)
• German: interpunktieren (de)
• Ido: puntuar (io)
• Italian: interpungere
• Portuguese: pontuar
• Spanish: puntuar (es)
• Swedish: interpunktera (sv)
• Turkish: noktalamak (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: نقطه‌لامق (noktalamak)

add or interrupt at regular intervals

emphasize, stress — see emphasize

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Italian: interpungere

Adjective

punctuate (comparative more punctuate, superlative most punctuate)

1. Point-like; consisting of or marked with one or more points.
   • 1918, Franklin Henry Martin, Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics, page 11:

     […] with a punctuate wound of entrance and a small wound of exit, may very properly be treated with a dry dressing and not disturbed, and in a large proportion of the cases there will be little or no tissue reaction that will require […]

   • 1922, Medical Review of Reviews, page 315:

     […] with a punctuate eruption on the hard palate, and a peppery red punctuate rash becoming generalized within twenty-four hours can mean nothing else but scarlet fever. Add to this the circumoral pallor and the glandular enlargements […]

   • 2005 March 22, Tor Savidge, Charalabos Pothulakis, Microbial Imaging, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 16:

     Positive HPV 16 hybridization signal in two cervical carcinomas. A punctuate signal (a) and a punctuate and diffuse signal (b).

   • 2012 January 25, Ming Zhou, George Netto, Jonathan I Epstein, Uropathology E-Book: A Volume in the High Yield Pathology Series, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 403:

     […] with a punctuate or “salt and pepper” chromatin pattern • Associated with focal epidermoid cyst or teratoma in 25% of cases • Lacks intratubular germ cell neoplasia Immunopathology (including immunohistochemistry) […]

   • 2012 November 8, Zoran Rumboldt, Mauricio Castillo, Benjamin Huang, Brain Imaging with MRI and CT: An Image Pattern Approach, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 344:

     […] with a punctuate wall calcification (arrow) along the right postcentral sulcus.

   • 2019 April 13, Beatrice Morio, Luc Penicaud, Michel Rigoulet, Mitochondria in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes: Comprehensive Review on Mitochondrial Functioning and Involvement in Metabolic Diseases, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 255:

     […] looking more punctuate. This mechanism is accompanied by a transient increase of mROS that could be inhibited by decreasing DRP1, thus decreasing DRP1/FIS1 association, and thus fission. In fasting animals, hypothalamic mitochondria appear […]

Derived terms

• nonpunctuate

Further reading

• “punctuate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “punctuate”, in The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Latin

Verb

pūnctuāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of pūnctuō