Punc`tu*a"tion (?), n. [Cf. F.
ponctuation.] (Gram.) The act or art of punctuating
or pointing a writing or discourse; the art or mode of dividing
literary composition into sentences, and members of a sentence, by
means of points, so as to elucidate the author's meaning.
&fist; Punctuation, as the term is usually understood, is
chiefly performed with four points: the period [.], the
colon [:], the semicolon [;], and the comma [,].
Other points used in writing and printing, partly rhetorical and
partly grammatical, are the note of interrogation [?], the
note of exclamation [!], the parentheses [()], the
dash [--], and brackets []. It was not until the 16th
century that an approach was made to the present system of punctuation
by the Manutii of Venice. With Caxton, oblique strokes took the place
of commas and periods.
