comma: [16] Greek kómma meant literally ‘piece cut off, segment’. It derived from the verb kóptein ‘cut’, relatives of which include Russian kopje ‘lance’, source of the coin-name kopeck, and probably English capon. Kómma came to be applied metaphorically, as a technical term in prosody, to a small piece of a sentence, a ‘short clause’, a sense which it retained when it reached English via Latin comma. It was not long before, like colon, it was applied to the punctuation mark signifying the end of such a clause. => capon, kopeck
comma (n.)
1520s as a Latin word, nativized by 1590s, from Latin comma "short phrase," from Greek komma "clause in a sentence," literally "piece which is cut off," from koptein "to cut off," from PIE root *kop- "to beat, strike" (see hatchet (n.)). Like colon (n.1) and period, originally a Greek rhetorical term for a part of a sentence, and like them it has been transferred to the punctuation mark that identifies it.
雙語例句
1. Not a comma was left out.
一個逗號也沒漏掉.
來自《簡明英漢詞典》
2. The two clauses are separated by a comma.
這兩個分句由一個逗號分開.
來自《現(xiàn)代漢英綜合大詞典》
3. Yet still the comma gets no respect.
盡管如此,逗號仍然不受人尊重.
來自名作英譯部分
4. He seemed to query every damn comma.
他簡直對每一個逗點都不輕易放過.
來自辭典例句
5. But the same could be said -- could it not? -- of the humble comma.