Punctuation Marks with Symbols, Explanations, and Examples
(this page includes a presentation of the punctuation marks or symbols that are in general use in English writing)
Symbolized as ’ or ', the text character that marks the possessive form of a noun; for example, John’s book, or a place where one or more letters have been removed from a word or phrase; such as, isn’t or don't.
Shown as *, used in manuscripts to mark passages or a hand printed, star-shaped figure, used primarily to indicate an omission, a reference to a footnote, a sound, or an affix (prefix, suffix).
One of a pair of symbols or together, [ ], they are used in writing or mathematics for showing that the piece of information or set of numbers between them can be considered separately.
A special mark, ^, that is used to indicate that something should be inserted; usually, when correcting texts to show where punctuation is missing ^.
A punctuation mark :, which is used after a word introducing a quotation, an explanation, an example, or a series; and that is often presented after the salutation in a business letter; such as,
Dear Mr. Jones:
Dear Mr. Jones:
A common mark , that is presented as an indication of a separation of ideas or of elements within the structure of a sentence; including, a pause between parts of a sentence or between elements in a list.
A grammatical dash —, shown between parts of a compound word or between the syllables of a word when the word is divided at the end of a line of text.
Some people refer to the - as a hyphen or a minus sign.
A mark, or a series of marks, . . . or …, that are used in writing or printing to indicate an omission or an absence of letters or words.
A symbol, !, indicating excitement, surprise, or shock.
A mark, -, that is used between the parts of a compound word, a name, or between the syllables of a word; especially, when it is divided at the end of a line of text.
Either of a pair of brackets ( ); especially, round brackets, and (used to enclose parenthetical material in a text).
A punctuation, ., which is placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations.
This ? is used at the end of a sentence to indicate a question.
This symbol " consists of either of a pair of punctuation marks used to mark the beginning and the end of a passage by another person and repeated word for word, and it also indicates meanings and the unusual or doubtful status of a word.
They appear in the form of double quotation marks (" ") and single quotation marks (' '). The single quotation marks usually indicate a quotation within a normal quotation.
This punctuation mark ; connects independent clauses and indicates a closer relationship between clauses than a period does and is followed by an initial lower-case letter unless there is a proper noun existing after the semicolon.
For a list of the available marks of punctuation and additional information about them, go to the Index of Punctuation Marks unit .
Showing page 1 out of 2 pages of 16 main-word entries or main-word-entry groups.