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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

punctuate.

To add punctuation to.

9 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈpʰʌŋktjuːeɪt/Received-Pronunciation[ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪt]General-American[ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪʔ]General-American
  1. To add punctuation to.

    transitive
    That occurrence of "its" needs to be punctuated as "it's".
  2. To add or to interrupt at regular intervals.

    transitive
    My father punctuated his tirade with thumps on the desk.
  3. To emphasize; to stress.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

adj/ˈpʰʌŋktjuːeɪt/Received-Pronunciation[ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪt]General-American[ˈpʰʌŋkʃɪu̯ːeɪʔ]General-American
  1. Point-like; consisting of or marked with one or more points.

Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.