Interesting words: Punctate
Published in
1 min readJul 28, 2019
Definition
According to Merriam-Webster, punctate is an adjective and means “marked with minute spots or depressions’’ or “characterized by dots or points’’. There is a noun form “punctation’’.
Pronunciation
Punk Tate.
Etymology
From Latin punctatus, then late Latin punctum (point).
Usage
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. Or, as in the image, a slug.
Don’t get punctation mixed up with punctuation! But, if a piece of writing uses ellipsis extensively, you could call it “punctate punctuation’’.
Frequency
About 1 in 5 1/2 million words.
