: any of several nymphalid butterflies (genus Polygonia) with a silvery comma-shaped mark on the underside of the hind wings
Examples of comma in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the WebLaura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.—Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 21 Mar. 2024 Another woman brought up the case of the dairy-truck drivers in Maine who won millions of dollars in overtime because their contract lacked a serial comma.—Mary Norris, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024 In these landscapes, naturalism and abstraction often battle to a pulsating draw by means of a magnified, or coarsened pointillism that recalls Seurat in its mosaic-like array of dots, dashes and commas.—Roberta Smith, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2024 In 2018, a group of dairy delivery drivers in Maine won a $5 million settlement, thanks in part to the lack of an Oxford comma in a state labor law.—Allison Morrow, CNN, 14 Feb. 2024 The comma neatly separates a list of things that are completely entangled, and in the process obscures the degree of violence happening to each individual person.—Cheri Lucas Rowlands, Longreads, 13 Feb. 2024 Other styles function as commas or accents to outfits.—Erika Veurink, Vogue, 22 Dec. 2023 But Pence allegedly told Smith's investigators that the comma should have never been placed there.—Katherine Faulders, ABC News, 28 Nov. 2023 The standard format is to start with a greeting — a hello, hi or good morning/afternoon plus their name — followed by a few separate paragraphs and a sign off, such as thank you, then a comma followed by your name.—Danielle Abril, Washington Post, 1 Nov. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'comma.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Late Latin, from Latin, part of a sentence, from Greek komma segment, clause, from koptein to cut — more at capon
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