punctum

From Latin pūnctum. Doublet of point and punto.

punctum (plural punctums or puncta)

1. (anatomy) A sharp tip of any part of the anatomy; a point or other small area.
   • 1861, The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Zoology, Botany, and Geology:

     Thus, from what has been stated, we see that neither the white puncta nor the minute white branchwork of lines were ever tubular.

2. (music) A neume representing a single tone.

• punctal

Coined in 1980 by French literary theorist Roland Barthes in his book Camera Lucida.

punctum (plural punctums or puncta)

1. (photography) A detail in a photograph that captures the viewer's attention and evokes an emotional response or personal connection beyond the intended subject.
   • 2007, Photography theory, page 87:

     […] the punctum is something that is seen by the viewer, without it being shown to them by the photographer. As such, it functions, according to Fried, as an “ontological guarantee” (553) of a given photograph’s nontheatricality.

   • 2012, Jeff Rice, Digital Detroit: Rhetoric and Space in the Age of the Network, page 160:

     Barthes describes the punctum (the nonconnotative or denotative meaning) of the photograph (or movie still) in such a manner; the detail relevant or not relevant to the image's overall meaning becomes the focus of an otherwise forgettable picture […]

• Audio:

  (file)

punctum m (plural punctums)

1. field of vision

• “punctum”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Neuter form of pūnctus, the perfect passive participle of pungō (“to prick, puncture”).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈpunk.tum/, [ˈpʊŋkt̪ʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈpunk.tum/, [ˈpuŋkt̪um]

pūnctum n (genitive pūnctī); second declension

1. (also grammar, mathematics) point
   • 1858 [1712], Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, edited by Carl Immanuel Gerhardt and Georg Heinrich Pertz, Gesammelte Werke: Leibnizens mathematische Schriften [Collected Works: Leibniz's Mathematical Writings], volume 5, "In Euclidis πρῶτα" [About the first things of Euclid], page 183:

     I. Pūnctum est cujus pars nūlla est.
     Addendum est, situm habēns. Aliōquī et temporis īnstāns, et Anima pūnctum foret. Sit locus ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}}$; sī jam quicquid est in locō ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}}$, sit ${\displaystyle X}$, dīcētur ${\displaystyle X}$ esse pūnctum, quāle ${\displaystyle A}$.

     1. A point is that of which there is no part.
     Having a position must be added. Otherwise, both an instant of time and a Soul would be a point. Let there be a locus ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}}$; if anything is already in the locus ${\displaystyle {\bar {X}}}$, let it be ${\displaystyle X}$. ${\displaystyle X}$ will be said to be a point, such as ${\displaystyle A}$.

2. puncture
3. moment
4. small portion
5. an affirmative vote, suffrage, ballot
6. (poetry) applause, approbation

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	pūnctum	pūncta
Genitive	pūnctī	pūnctōrum
Dative	pūnctō	pūnctīs
Accusative	pūnctum	pūncta
Ablative	pūnctō	pūnctīs
Vocative	pūnctum	pūncta

• pūnctus

• “punctum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “punctum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• punctum in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• punctum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.