Point

How to spell point

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce point

What does point mean?

1. nounA particular detail, position, moment, or unit, or the sharp tip of something.
2. verbTo direct attention or aim something towards a particular place or direction.

Point in a sentence

• noun

  She raised an important point during the meeting.

• verb

  The guide will point to the exits before takeoff.

• noun

  The home team scored the winning point in the final minute.

• verb

  Please point the camera away from the bright window.

Where does point come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin punctum, meaning 'a small pricked hole' or 'a dot', which was the past participle of pungere, 'to prick or pierce'. The same Latin verb gives us 'puncture' and 'pungent', words that still carry that idea of something sharp and piercing. English picked it up through Old French in the 1200s, where 'point' carried two threads at once: the sharp tip of a sword or pen, and a tiny mark or detail on a page. From those literal beginnings the meaning spread outward in English to cover a position in space, a moment in time, a unit in scoring, and the central idea of an argument. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable, preserving the 'oi' that French handed over, so the main thing to fix in memory is that the vowel is written 'oi' rather than 'oy'.

How the word is built

• point (from Latin punctum: a pricked mark, a dot)