virgil
See also: Virgil
English
Noun
virgil (plural virgils)
- (typography, Britain, obsolete) Synonym of slash ⟨/⟩.
- 1824, J. Johnson, Typographia:
- There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative... it is a slender stroke leaning forward, betokening a little short rest, without any perfectness yet of sentence.
- 1828, Richard Thomson, Illustrations of the History of Great Britain, Vol. II, page 145:
- No points were used by the ancient printers, excepting the colon and the period; but, after some time, a short oblique stroke, called a virgil, was introduced, which answered to the modern comma.
- 1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9:
- Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.
- 1990, John McDermott, Punctuation for Now, page 20:
- Other Chaucerian manuscripts had the virgule (or virgil or oblique: /) at the middle of lines.
- 1824, J. Johnson, Typographia:
See also
- dashes ( ‒ ) ( – ) ( — ) ( ― )
- ellipsis ( … )
- exclamation mark ( ! )
- fraction slash ( ⁄ )
- guillemets ( « » )
- hyphen ( - ) ( ‐ )
- interpunct ( · )
- interrobang (rare) ( ‽ )
- parentheses ( ( ) )
- period (US) or full stop (UK) ( . )
- question mark ( ? )
- quotation marks (formal) ( ‘ ’ ) ( “ ” )
- quotation marks (informal, Computing) ( " ) ( ' )
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