stop
The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English) or full point is a punctuation mark. It is used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declaratory sentence (as opposed to a question or exclamation); this sentence-terminal use, alone, defines the strictest sense of full stop.
The full stop is also often used alone to indicate omitted characters, or in an ellipsis, …, to indicate omitted words. It may be placed after an initial letter used to stand for a name, or sometimes after each individual letter in an initialism or acronym, for example, "U.S.A."; however, this style is declining, and many initialisms like UK or NATO have individually become accepted norms. A full stop is also frequently used at the end of word abbreviations – in British usage, primarily truncations like Rev., but not after contractions like Revd; however, in American English it is used in both cases.
In Anglophone countries, it is used for the decimal point and other purposes, and may be called a point. In computing, it is called a dot. It is sometimes called a baseline dot to distinguish it from the interpunct (or middle dot). While full stop technically only applies to the full point when used to terminate a sentence, the distinction – drawn since at least 1897 – is not maintained by all modern style guides and dictionaries.
The full stop symbol derives from the Greek punctuation introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BC. In his system, there were a series of dots whose placement determined their meaning. The full stop at the end of a completed thought or expression was marked by a high dot ⟨˙⟩, called the stigmḕ teleía (στιγμὴ τελεία) or "terminal dot". The "middle dot" ⟨·⟩, the stigmḕ mésē (στιγμὴ μέση), marked a division in a thought occasioning a longer breath (essentially a semicolon) and the low dot ⟨.⟩, called the hypostigmḕ (ὑποστιγμή) or "underdot", marked a division in a thought occasioning a shorter breath (essentially a comma). In practice, scribes mostly employed the terminal dot; the others fell out of use and were later replaced by other symbols. From the 9th century, the full stop began appearing as a low mark instead of a high one; by the advent of printing in Western Europe, the low mark was regular and then universal.The name period is first attested (as the Latin loanword peridos) in Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English treatment on grammar. There, it is distinguished from the full stop (the distinctio) and continues the Greek underdot's earlier function as a comma between phrases. It shifted its meaning to a dot marking a full stop in the works of the 16th-century grammarians. In 19th-century texts, both British English and American English were consistent in their usage of the terms period and full stop. The word period was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point" or the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations. The phrase full stop was only used to refer to the punctuation mark when it was used to terminate a sentence. This distinction seems to be eroding. For example, the 1998 edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage used full point for the character after an abbreviation, but full stop or full point at the end of a sentence; while the 2015 edition treats them as synonymous (and prefers full stop), and New Hart's Rules does likewise (but prefers full point). The last edition (1989) of the original Hart's Rules exclusively used full point.
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The full stop is also often used alone to indicate omitted characters, or in an ellipsis, …, to indicate omitted words. It may be placed after an initial letter used to stand for a name, or sometimes after each individual letter in an initialism or acronym, for example, "U.S.A."; however, this style is declining, and many initialisms like UK or NATO have individually become accepted norms. A full stop is also frequently used at the end of word abbreviations – in British usage, primarily truncations like Rev., but not after contractions like Revd; however, in American English it is used in both cases.
In Anglophone countries, it is used for the decimal point and other purposes, and may be called a point. In computing, it is called a dot. It is sometimes called a baseline dot to distinguish it from the interpunct (or middle dot). While full stop technically only applies to the full point when used to terminate a sentence, the distinction – drawn since at least 1897 – is not maintained by all modern style guides and dictionaries.
The full stop symbol derives from the Greek punctuation introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BC. In his system, there were a series of dots whose placement determined their meaning. The full stop at the end of a completed thought or expression was marked by a high dot ⟨˙⟩, called the stigmḕ teleía (στιγμὴ τελεία) or "terminal dot". The "middle dot" ⟨·⟩, the stigmḕ mésē (στιγμὴ μέση), marked a division in a thought occasioning a longer breath (essentially a semicolon) and the low dot ⟨.⟩, called the hypostigmḕ (ὑποστιγμή) or "underdot", marked a division in a thought occasioning a shorter breath (essentially a comma). In practice, scribes mostly employed the terminal dot; the others fell out of use and were later replaced by other symbols. From the 9th century, the full stop began appearing as a low mark instead of a high one; by the advent of printing in Western Europe, the low mark was regular and then universal.The name period is first attested (as the Latin loanword peridos) in Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English treatment on grammar. There, it is distinguished from the full stop (the distinctio) and continues the Greek underdot's earlier function as a comma between phrases. It shifted its meaning to a dot marking a full stop in the works of the 16th-century grammarians. In 19th-century texts, both British English and American English were consistent in their usage of the terms period and full stop. The word period was used as a name for what printers often called the "full point" or the punctuation mark that was a dot on the baseline and used in several situations. The phrase full stop was only used to refer to the punctuation mark when it was used to terminate a sentence. This distinction seems to be eroding. For example, the 1998 edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage used full point for the character after an abbreviation, but full stop or full point at the end of a sentence; while the 2015 edition treats them as synonymous (and prefers full stop), and New Hart's Rules does likewise (but prefers full point). The last edition (1989) of the original Hart's Rules exclusively used full point.
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