punctuation

n. system of symbols used to divide or clarify text (such as !, ?, ", etc.); act of placing punctuation marks within text; vocalization; act of emphasizing

Punctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers, including punctuation marks (listed at right), inter-word spaces, capitalization, and indentation.Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes  (sounds) of a language nor to lexemes (words and phrases), but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading it aloud. See orthography.In English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, "woman, without her man, is nothing," and "woman: without her, man is nothing," have greatly different meanings, as do "eats shoots and leaves" and "eats, shoots and leaves."
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Noun
1. something that makes repeated and regular interruptions or divisions
(hypernym) interruption, break
2. the marks used to clarify meaning by indicating separation of words into sentences and clauses and phrases
(synonym) punctuation mark
(hypernym) mark
(hyponym) ampersand
(part-holonym) orthography, writing system
(derivation) punctuate, mark
3. the use of certain marks to clarify meaning of written material by grouping words grammatically into sentences and clauses and phrases
(hypernym) grouping
(hyponym) hyphenation
(member-holonym) orthography, writing system
(derivation) punctuate, mark

(n.)
The act or art of punctuating or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning.
  

Synonyms and related words:
alphabet, ampersand, angle brackets, apostrophe, braces, colon, comma, dash, decimal point, diacritical mark, diagonal, dot, ellipsis, end stop, exclamation mark, full stop, hyphen, letter, parens, parentheses, period, point, punctuation marks, question mark, quotation marks, quotes, reference, reference mark, semicolon, single quotes, solidus, stop, tittle, virgule, writing system, written character