comma
[ˈkɑ.mə ~ ˈkɑ.mʌ]noun, verb
comma is spelled C-O-M-M-A: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, comma means “The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of comma is commas; Wiktionary also lists commata (rare), commaes (obsolete).
How many letters and syllables are in comma?
| Letters | 5: C-O-M-M-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 20,356th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is comma?
Comma appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 20,356th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce comma?
- UK /ˈkɒmə/
- British /ˈkɔmə/
- US [ˈkɑ.mə ~ ˈkɑ.mʌ]
Comma has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-comma.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-comma.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of comma
- commas plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- commata plural, rare
- commaing participle, present
- commaed participle, past
- comma'd participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does comma mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The punctuation mark ⟨,⟩ used to indicate a set of parts of a sentence or between elements of a list.
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. In the fifteenth century this punctuation wa
- 2
A similar-looking subscript diacritical mark.
- 3
Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Polygonia, having a comma-shaped white mark on the underwings, especially Polygonia c-album and Polygonia c-aureum of North Africa, Europe, and Asia.
- 4
A difference in the calculation of nearly identical intervals by different ways.
- 5
A delimiting marker between items in a genetic sequence.
- 6
In Ancient Greek rhetoric, a short clause, something less than a colon, originally denoted by comma marks. In antiquity it was defined as a combination of words having no more than eight syllables in all. It was later applied to longer phrases, e.g. the Johannine comma.
- 7
A brief interval.
verb
- 1
rareTo place a comma or commas within text; to follow, precede, or surround a portion of text with commas.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate comma?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of comma: CMA.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Comma in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | virgule , comma , virguler |
| German | Beistrich, Komma , C-Falter |
| Portuguese | vírgula |
| Spanish | coma |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does comma come from?
From Latin comma, from Ancient Greek κόμμα (kómma), from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).