virgil
nounEtymology An anglicization of French virgule, from Latin virgula.
1
Media, Publishing, Typography UK, Archaic Synonym of slash ⟨/⟩.
- There be five manner of points and divisions most used among cunning men; the which if they be well used, make the sentence very light and easy to be understood, both to the reader and hearer: and they be these, virgil,—come,—parenthesis,—plain point,—interrogative... it is a slender stroke leaning forward, betokening a little short rest, without any perfectness yet of sentence.1824, J. Johnson, Typographia:
- 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.1828, Richard Thomson, Illustrations of the History of Great Britain, Vol. II, page 145
2 more examples
- Whoever introduced the several points, it seems that a full-point, a point called come, answering to our colon-point, a point called virgil answering to our comma-point, the parenthesis-points and interrogative-point, were used at the close of the fourteenth, or beginning of the fifteenth century.1842, F. Francillon, An Essay on Punctuation, page 9:
- Other Chaucerian manuscripts had the virgule (or virgil or oblique: /) at the middle of lines.1990, John McDermott, Punctuation for Now, page 20:
- Related terms
25 terms
apostrophe, curly brackets, brace, square bracket, bracket, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation mark, fraction slash, guillemet, hyphen, interpunct, interrobang, parentheses (US, Canada), full stop, period, question mark, quotation marks, semicolon, slash, stroke, space