virgule
See also: virgulé
English
WOTD – 18 January 2009
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French virgule, from Latin virgula (“twig; scratch comma”), from virga (“rod, branch”) + -ulus (“forming diminutives”).
Noun
virgule (plural virgules)
- (typography, obsolete or historical) A medieval punctuation mark similar to the slash ⟨/⟩ or pipe ⟨|⟩ and used as a scratch comma and caesura mark.
- 1990, John McDermott, Punctuation for Now, page 20:
- Other Chaucerian manuscripts had the virgule (or virgil or oblique: /) at the middle of lines.
- 1990, John McDermott, Punctuation for Now, page 20:
- (typography, dated) A slash, ⟨/⟩ or ⟨/⟩, particularly (literature) in its use to mark line breaks within quotes.
- (typography, dated) A pipe, ⟨|⟩, particularly (poetry) in its use to mark metrical feet.
Synonyms
Czech
French
Pronunciation
Noun
virgule f (plural virgules)
- comma (punctuation mark)
- (mathematics) decimal point (see usage notes)
- En Europe continentale, la virgule permet de noter la partie décimale; pi vaut environ 3,1415. — In continental Europe, the comma is used to denote the decimal part; pi is about 3.1415.
Usage notes
- In France, unlike in English-speaking countries, a comma is used to separate the whole and decimal parts of a decimal, while a space (gap) is used to mark off thousands. So "100,000.9" ("one-hundred thousand point 9") is written in French as "100 000,9".
- In mathematics, the translation is "decimal point", but "comma" can be a more appropriate translation. For example, il y a trois décimales après la virgule translates as there are three decimal places after the decimal point, but En France, on sépare la partie entière et la partie décimale avec une virgule is better translated as In France, you separate the whole and decimal parts with a comma rather than ... with a decimal point, as the former explains which symbol is used and the latter is misleading.
Derived terms
Derived terms
Further reading
- “virgule” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Norman
Alternative forms
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.