Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A little rod; a twig.
  • noun A Comma. Hallam, Lit. Hist, of Europe, i. 8

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun rare A comma.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun typography The diagonal slash character - /, used to separate parts of text, and to represent the word per in expressions such as feet/second.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, comma, obelus, from Late Latin virgula, accentual mark, from Latin, obelus, diminutive of virga, rod.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin virgula, diminutive of virga ("rod, branch").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word virgule.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • The so-called forward slash or stroke. Also solidus.

    February 23, 2007

  • Typography has many tools

    But it's hard to remember the rules:

    What meaning attaches

    To dots and to dashes

    And where do you put the virgules?

    September 24, 2014

  • In golf there is a particularly painful class of failed putt that the French call a "virgule." This is when the ball rolls around half the circumference of the cup and then continues a short distance on the far side of the hole. The shape that is described by this progress is that of a comma or, in French, virgule. Play golf with French speakers and you will hear this word uttered with the passion of blasphemy.

    Golf can be mockingly cruel
    And putting a torturer's tool.
    The impudent ball
    Won't drop in at all
    But shapes what the French call virgule.

    September 24, 2014

  • Adding this to the list of qms poems.

    October 11, 2021