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colon

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English has two nouns spelled colon: the punctuation mark, from Greek kôlon "limb, clause", and the part of the large intestine, from Greek kólon.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈkoʊ.lən/, /ˈkɔ.lən/[4]
  • UK: /ˈkəʊ.lən/, /ˈkəʊ.lɒn/[4]

colon1 punctuation mark

Etymology

The punctuation mark is borrowed from Latin cōlon (“part of a poem, member of a verse”),[2][3][5][6] from Ancient Greek κῶλον (kôlon, “limb, member; clause of a sentence, part of a strophe”).[5][2][3][7] Barnhart and Klein relate it to σκέλος (skélos, “leg”) and derive it from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“crooked, bent”),[3][7] and Klein compares Lithuanian kelỹs (“knee”) and the Slavic words for knee;[7] Beekes finds no obvious cognates and thinks the Balto-Slavic words can hardly be related, because of the Greek vowel.[8] The mark was so called because it was first used to set off a clause.[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In rhetoric, a section of a complex sentence, or the pause before it: Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s,[2] Merriam-Webster to about 1550,[9] and the Oxford Dictionary of English to the mid-16th century.[10] The OED's first quotation for both this sense and the punctuation mark is from George Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie (1589).[5][3]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the word meant a limb, and was applied, much like foot, to a unit of verse and then to a clause.[1] In ancient grammar a colon was one of the larger divisions of a sentence;[2] the meaning then moved from the independent clause to the mark that set it off.[2][1] Johnson (1755) defined it as a point marking a pause longer than a comma and shorter than a period, and remarked that its use "is not very exactly fixed".[11] Later uses include separating hours from minutes and the terms of a ratio.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 1550 – in rhetoric and prosody, a section of a sentence or period.[9][2]
  • 1589 – the punctuation mark (:), in Puttenham.[5][3]
  • 1755 – Johnson describes the mark's use as unsettled.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The punctuation mark (:), used chiefly before an explanation, an example, a list or a long quotation.[12][5]
  2. The same mark used in other ways, as between hours and minutes (7:30) or the terms of a ratio (3:1).[12]
  3. (plural cola) In classical prosody and rhetoric, a section of a sentence or of a rhythmical period.[12][9][13]

Word family

  • semicolon
  • dicolon
  • tricolon

colon2 part of the large intestine

Etymology

The part of the intestine is borrowed from Latin colon,[5][2][3][13] from Ancient Greek κόλον (kólon, “large intestine; food, meat”).[5][13][1][8] The OED explains the spelling κῶλον (kôlon) found in manuscripts as a confusion with the word for limb,[5] and Beekes notes the same influence in Late Greek.[8] Hoad allows a French source as well, French côlon.[6] The origin of the Greek word is unknown;[2][7][8] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster compare Lithuanian skilvis (“belly”) and an Armenian word for the guts.[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The greater part of the large intestine: 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew's De Proprietatibus Rerum.[5][3] The Shorter Oxford notes that it was once also used loosely for the belly or guts.[13]

Semantic evolution

The anatomical sense has stayed the same since the 14th century.[5][2] From 1836 it was also used in entomology for the second, usually wider, part of an insect's intestine.[5]

Timeline

  • 1398 – the main part of the large intestine.[5][3]
  • 1836 – in entomology, a part of an insect's intestine.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The main part of the large intestine, running from the cecum to the rectum.[9][5][12]
  2. In insects, the second part of the intestine.[5]

Word family

  • colonic
  • colectomy
  • colitis
  • colonoscope
  • colonoscopy
  • scalene
  • colic

Usage notes

The colón, the monetary unit of Costa Rica and formerly of El Salvador, is from Spanish colón, named after Cristóbal Colón, the Spanish name of Christopher Columbus.[12][7][13][9] A rarer colon, a colonial settler or farmer, is from French colon, from Latin colōnus (“farmer”).[5][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press