[a. L. cōlon, a. Gr. κῶλον limb, member or clause of sentence, portion of strophe.]
ǁ 1. In Gr. Rhetoric and Prosody, a member or section of a sentence or rhythmical period; hence in Palæography, a clause or group of clauses written as a line, or taken as a standard of measure in ancient MSS. or texts. plur. cola.
1589. [see 2].
1882. W. Blades, Caxton, 126. The Greek grammarians … called a complete sentence a period, a limb was a colon, and a clause a comma.
1883. J. R. Harris, in Amer. Jrnl. Philol., IV. 151. Front Suidas we find that when the στίχος forms a complete clause it is known as a colon. Ibid., 152. The methods employed in breaking up the text of Demosthenes into cola and periods. Ibid. Colon-writing is sometimes accompanied by colometry.
fig. a. 1658. Cleveland, Poems, Against Sleep, 19. Sleep! the Days Colon, many Hours of Bliss Lost in a wide Parenthesis.
2. A punctuation-mark consisting of two dots placed one above the other [:] usually indicating a discontinuity of grammatical construction greater than that marked by the semicolon, but less than that marked by the period. plur. colons.
Its best defined use is to separate clauses that are grammatically independent and discontinuous, but between which there is an apposition or similar relation of sense. Thus it may introduce an antithetic statement, an illustration, extract, etc. But ‘its use is not very exactly fixed; it was used before punctuation was refined, to mark almost any sense less than a period’ (J.). It is also employed to divide prose into metrical periods for chanting.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, II. iv. [v.] (Arb.), 88. The auncient reformers of language, invented, three manner of pauses…. The second they called colon, not a peece but as it were a member for his larger length, because it occupied twise as much time as the comma.
1616. Bullokar, Colon, A marke of a sentence not fully ended which is made with two prickes.
1684. H. More, Answer, 60. This plainly is not perfect sense … unless you take away the Colon.
1748. J. Mason, Elocut., 24. A Comma Stops the Voice while we may privately tell one, a Semi Colon two; a Colon three: and a Period four.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Others say, a colon is to be used when the sense is perfect, but the sentence not concluded.
1824. L. Murray, Eng. Gram. (ed. 5), I. 403. The Colon is used to divide a sentence into two or more parts, less connected than those which are separated by a semicolon.
1882. W. Blades, Caxton, 125. [Caxton] employed three points, the comma, the colon, and the period or full point.
