COMMA • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Comma

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/kˈɑmə/ Listen

noun

Comma n.

A character or point (,) marking the smallest divisions of a sentence, written or printed.

(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 (Zool.), an American butterfly (Grapta comma), having a white comma-shaped marking on the under side of the wings.

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Etymology of 'Comma'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Comma" Quotes from Famous Books

... contrary, it has a most elegant curve. It's not the shape I complain about, it's the difference in the work. You see, if I could only get my tail into my mouth I should be a Full-stop; and Full-stops have so little to do nowadays that I should be able to retire at once. Being a Comma is quite another matter; it's work, work, work, from year's end to year's end. Hullo! What is ...

— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp

... capital, could he but have suppressed his rancour against those who had preceded him in the task, but a misconstruction or misinterpretation, nay, the misplacing of a comma, was in Gifford's eyes a crime worthy of the most severe animadversion. The same fault of extreme severity went through his critical labours, and in general he flagellated with so little pity, that people lost their sense of the criminal's ...

— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... play to remove the cents after the figure "25." A comma and three zeros following it were inserted, followed by a new "00/100." The signature was ...

— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... go with you, my pretty maid, for I've been asked too, in a breathless note from Mellicent, with neither beginning nor ending, nor comma nor full stop. If any one else had written in such a state of agitation, I should have thought something thrilling had occurred, but Mellicent is guaranteed to go off her head on the slightest provocation. Probably it is nothing more exciting than a cake or a teacloth which is to be used ...

— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... appealed to, or at least 'the young and rising naturalists with plastic minds,* [On the Nature of the Limbs, page 482] are adjured." It will be seen that the inverted comma after "naturalists" is omitted; the asterisk referring, in a footnote (here placed in square brackets), to page 482 of the "Origin," seems to have been incorrectly assumed by Mr. Darwin to show the close of the quotation.—Ibid., ...

— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

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