<p><strong>Noun:</strong></p><ul><li>the practice or system of using certain conventional marks or characters in writing or printing in order to separate elements and make the meaning clear, as in ending a sentence or separating clauses</li><li>the act of punctuating</li><li>punctuation marks</li><li>the sudden or accelerated extinction of some species and emergence of others, occurring only in isolated periods, as set forth in the theory of punctuated equilibrium</li></ul>