Punctuationism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    In evolutionary biology, belief that evolution does not proceed at a steady pace, but instead is characterized by periods of stasis, punctuated by brief (within several hundred-thousand years) periods of rapid change. uncountable

    "Gould has misled himself by his own rhetorical emphasis on the purely poetic or literary resemblance between punctuationism, on the one hand, and true saltationism on the other."

Example

More examples

"Gould has misled himself by his own rhetorical emphasis on the purely poetic or literary resemblance between punctuationism, on the one hand, and true saltationism on the other."

Etymology

From punctuation + -ism.

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Editorial Guides For "punctuationism"

Which vs That: Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Clauses

Use which and that with confidence in formal and everyday writing.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.