punctuate

«punctuate» in Mova's school dictionary: to put in punctuation marks, like full stops, commas… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (punctuate, punctuates, punctuated, punctuating)

meaning for a pupil

1) To punctuate writing is to put in punctuation marks, like full stops, commas, question marks and speech marks. tree →

2) To punctuate something also means to interrupt it again and again: the speech was punctuated by cheers. tree →

3) To punctuate can mean to stress a point: he punctuated his words by banging the table. tree →

sense in the lessons

In English lessons, pupils are told to «punctuate your writing correctly» and «punctuate the speech»: capital letters, full stops, commas in lists, apostrophes, and inverted commas round spoken words. In stories, «punctuated by» shows something happening at intervals: silence punctuated by drips. Phrases: «punctuate correctly», «punctuate the sentence», «punctuated by», «punctuated with».

examples

• Punctuate this sentence: where are you going asked tom tree →
• Remember to punctuate your story with full stops and capital letters. tree →
• She punctuated the dialogue with speech marks. tree →
• The quiet night was punctuated by an owl's hoot. tree →
• His talk was punctuated with jokes. tree →
• The teacher punctuated each rule by tapping the board. tree →
• Can you punctuate the list with commas? tree →

note

Noun: «punctuation» (uncountable). Spelled with «-uate», like «graduate». The second meaning is common in stories and the exam voice. Do not confuse with «punctual» (on time), though both come from a Latin word for "point".

In the corpora

• A long sentence is not a run-on if it is punctuated properly.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «punctuate» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.