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# 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#m1)

2) To punctuate something also means to interrupt it again and again: the speech was punctuated by cheers. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#m2)

3) To punctuate can mean to stress a point: he punctuated his words by banging the table. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#m3)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x1)
- Remember to punctuate your story with full stops and capital letters. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x2)
- She punctuated the dialogue with speech marks. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x3)
- The quiet night was punctuated by an owl's hoot. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x4)
- His talk was punctuated with jokes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x5)
- The teacher punctuated each rule by tapping the board. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x6)
- Can you punctuate the list with commas? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/#x7)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/language/14-punctuation-that-changes-meaning/9/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «punctuate» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/punctuate/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.