punto

Forms

punto m (plural puntos, diminutive puntillo or puntito)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote the Latinising puncto, as in Berceo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish punto, inherited from Latin pūnctum (“a prick, a puncture; a point”).^[2][4][5][1] The Latin noun is the neuter of pūnctus, past participle of pungō (“to prick, pierce”), so that its first sense was “a wound made with a point”.^[2][1][6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese ponto, Galician punto, Asturian puntu, Catalan punt, Occitan ponch, French point and Italian punto.^[7][1] Meyer-Lübke lists Spanish punta “point, tip” and its cognates under the same Latin word.^[7]

The verb is a nasal present; de Vaan reconstructs *pung- and *pu-n(e)-g/k-, and compares Greek πύξ (púx, “with the fist”) and πυγμή (pugmḗ, “fist”).^[8] The Latin family also includes pūgnus (“fist”) and pūgna (“fight”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the archangel tells the Cid in a dream „ca nuncua en tan buen punto cavalgó varón” “for never did a man ride out at so good a moment”.^[9] Corominas notes the sense “moment, instant” in the Cid and Berceo, and the sense “musical tone” in Berceo and Juan Ruiz.^[2] The first hit without a later copy is the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), which compares the earth in the middle of the world to a dot in the middle of a circle.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Corominas declines to trace the whole of the word's vast range of senses and dates only the main ones.^[2] The general sense “very small mark” is already Latin; it appears in Berceo (puncto de claridad), for the pips of a die in the Escorial glossaries of about 1400, and for the punctuation mark in Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[2] The stitch made in sewing is recorded from about 1400, the surgical stitch from the end of the 16th century.^[2] Punto de costado “stitch in the side” seems taken from French and is in the Academy's dictionary only from 1925.^[2] The adverbial use “not at all”, frequent in French and Old Catalan, is rare in Castilian;^[10] a punto “ready” is recorded from 1570 and comes from the phrase poner a punto or en punto de hacer algo.^[2][4]

Covarrubias (1611) lists the point on a gun, the stitches given to a wound, the points of theology, the holes in a belt, the points of a card game, en un punto “in an instant” and al punto “at once”.^[10] Autoridades defines it first as the smallest quantity that can be considered, without parts or dimension, and also as the subject or main issue of a discussion.^[11] Moliner adds the unit with which scores, merits and faults are counted.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has punto “moment”.^[9][2]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo uses it for a dot in a circle.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a stone with white spots, puntos blancos.^[13]
• c. 1400 – the Escorial glossaries record the pips of a die and the stitch in sewing.^[2]
• 1490s – Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija record the punctuation mark.^[2]
• 1520 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, in de todo punto “entirely”.^[14]
• 1570 – first record of a punto “ready”.^[2][4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists the point of a gun, surgical stitches and al punto “at once”.^[10]
• 1925 – punto de costado enters the Academy's dictionary.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, usually round dot or mark that stands out on a surface by its colour or relief.^[5][1]
2. The dot over the letters i and j.^[5]
3. (punctuation) The full stop or period, marking the end of a sentence or an abbreviation.^[5][1]
4. (mathematics) The decimal point.^[5][1]
5. A specific spot, place or position: el punto de encuentro.^[1]
6. A moment or instant: al punto “at once”.^[2][10]
7. A unit of scoring in games, exams and competitions: Ganaron por tres puntos.^[1][12]
8. A stitch in sewing or in surgery: Le dieron cuatro puntos en la frente.^[5][1]
9. Each loop of a knitted fabric, and knitwear itself: tejido de punto.^[5]
10. A matter, item or issue under discussion: el primer punto del orden del día.^[11][12]
11. (historical) A small traditional unit of length, about 0.16 mm.^[1]

Word family

• puntada
• puntar
• puntear
• puntero
• puntera
• puntillo
• contrapunto
• apuntar
• a punto
• en punto

Related words

• pungir
• punta
• punzar
• punzón
• puntual
• puntuación
• Latin pūnctum
• French point

Usage notes

The interjection ¡punto! or y punto means “and that's that”.^[1] Set phrases include dos puntos “colon”, punto y coma “semicolon”, en punto “sharp” (of the time), a punto de “about to” and arco de medio punto “semicircular arch”.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 693
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. punto
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. punto
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. punto
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. punto
10. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1237
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. punto
12. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. punto
13. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. punto
14. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. puncto