punctuate

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Medieval Latin punctuare (“to mark with points”), from Latin punctus, perfect passive participle of pungō (“I prick, punch”); see point, and compare punch and punctate.

Pronunciation

• (verb)
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpʌŋktjuːeɪt/

    • Audio (Southern England):

      (file)

  • (General American) IPA^(key): [ˈpʌŋkʃuːeɪt]

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To add punctuation to.

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

2. (transitive) To add or to interrupt at regular intervals.

   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.

Related terms

• point
• punctilious
• punctual
• punctuality
• punctuation

Translations

add punctuation to

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

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 […]

Further reading

• “punctuate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “punctuate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Latin

Verb

pūnctuāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of pūnctuō