comma (English)

Where does "comma" come from?

The English word 'comma' traces back to the Ancient Greek 'kómma'[1][2], which originally referred to a short clause or a brief interval. This term was derived from the verb 'kóptō', meaning 'I cut'[1][2]. In ancient rhetoric, a 'comma' was seen as a segment of a sentence, essentially a piece cut from the whole. The word passed through Latin as 'comma'[1] before entering English to describe both the familiar punctuation mark and various butterflies that feature a small, cut-like shape on their wings[1][3].

Open questions

• The verb 'kóptō' may be a substrate borrowing rather than a direct development from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root '*kop-'. [4]

Full etymology tree

• comma (English), 'The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.'
  • inherited comma (Latin), 'a comma (a division, member, or section of a period smaller than a colon)'
    • borrowed κόμμα (kómma) (Ancient Greek), 'a stamp or impression of a coin, coinage'
      • derived κόπτω (kóptō) (Ancient Greek), 'to strike; cut; shake'
        • inherited *(s)kop- (Proto-Indo-European)
      • affix -μα (-ma) (Ancient Greek), 'Added to verbal stems to form neuter nouns denoting the effect or result of an action, a particular instance of an action, or the object of an action'

Ancestors

• comma (Latin)
• κόμμα (Ancient Greek)

Descendants and derived words

• comma bacillus (English)
• comma butterfly (English)
• comma category (English)
• commaless (English)
• comma lichen (English)
• commalike (English)
• comma-point (English)
• comma queen (English)
• comma splice (English)
• commify (English)
• decimal comma (English)
• dun comma (English)

Sources

1. comma (English) - Wiktionary
2. comma (Latin) - Wiktionary
3. κόμμα (kómma) (Ancient Greek) - Wiktionary
4. κόπτω (kóptō) (Ancient Greek) - Wiktionary

Updated August 2026

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Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris