# 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: /ˈpʌŋktjuːeɪt/
*** Audio (Southern England):(file)
** (General American) IPA: [ˈpʌŋkʃuːeɪt]

### Verb

punctuate (third-person singular simple present punctuates, present participle punctuating, simple past and past participle punctuated)
* (transitive) To add punctuation to.
    That occurrence of "its" needs to be punctuated as "it's".
* (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:Most soldiers would testify that the everyday experience of war is long stretches of boredom punctuated by sudden, terrifying spells of disorder.
* (transitive) To emphasize; to stress.

#### Related terms

* point
* punctilious
* punctual
* punctuality
* punctuation

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Adjective

punctuate (comparative more punctuate, superlative most punctuate)
* 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
* second-person plural present active imperative of pūnctuō