Full stop
punctuation to signal the end of a sentence
The full stop (Commonwealth English), period (North American English), or full point (.), is a punctuation mark used for several purposes, most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence (as distinguished from a question or exclamation).
A full stop is frequently used at the end of word abbreviations—in British usage, primarily truncations such as Rev., but not after contractions which retain the final letter such as Revd; in American English, it is used in both cases. It may be placed after an initial letter used to abbreviate a word. It is often placed after each individual letter in initialisms, (e.g., U.S.), but not usually in those that are acronyms (NATO). However, the use of full stops after letters in initialisms is declining, and many of these without punctuation have become accepted norms (e.g., UK and NATO). When used in a series (typically of three, an ellipsis) the mark is also used to indicate omitted words.
In the English-speaking world, a punctuation mark identical to the full stop is used as the decimal separator and for other purposes, and may be called a point. In computing, it is called a dot. It is sometimes called a baseline dot to distinguish it from the interpunct (or middle dot).
History
Ancient Greek origin
The full stop symbol derives from the Greek punctuation introduced by Aristophanes of Byzantium in the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Full stop” as punctuation to signal the end of a sentence. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as punctuation to signal the end of a sentence. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q172008. The Library of Congress control number is sh2007007375. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Full stop” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.