According to Merriam-Webster, punctate (rhymes with drunk state) is an adjective and means "marked with minute spots or depressions" or "characterized by dots or points". That's a useful word! It saves a bunch of words and makes a clear description of a situation easier. You could use it to describe a skin condition or a leaf or findings from an MRI or things like that.
There is a noun form "punctation".
Don't get this mixed up with punctuation! But, if a piece of writing uses ellipsis extensively, you could call it "punctate punctuation"!
The etymology is from Latin punctatus, then Latin punctum (point). It's rarely used (about 1 in 5,000,000 words, per Google Ngram) and is in decline, for some reason, having peaked in about 1910.
No comments:
Post a Comment