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Thus, the technique of metropolitan life is unimaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule.
Georg Simmel

Meaning of "punctual" in the English dictionary

Dictionary
DICTIONARY
section

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD PUNCTUAL

From Medieval Latin punctuālis concerning detail, from Latin punctum point.
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Etymology is the study of the origin of words and their changes in structure and significance.
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PRONUNCIATION OF PUNCTUAL

punctual  [ˈpʌŋktjʊəl] play
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GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF PUNCTUAL

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation
Punctual is an adjective.
The adjective is the word that accompanies the noun to determine or qualify it.

WHAT DOES PUNCTUAL MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Punctuality

Punctuality is the characteristic of being able to complete a required task or fulfill an obligation before or at a previously designated time. "Punctual" is often used synonymously with "on time". It is a common misconception that punctual can also, when talking about grammar, mean "to be accurate". According to each culture, there is often an understanding about what is considered an acceptable degree of punctuality. Usually, a small amount of lateness is acceptable; this is commonly about ten or fifteen minutes in Western cultures, but this is not the case in such instances as doctor's appointments or school lessons. In some cultures, such as Japanese society, and settings, such as military ones, expectations may be much stricter. Some cultures have an unspoken understanding that actual deadlines are different from stated deadlines; for example, it may be understood in a particular culture that people will turn up an hour later than advertised. In this case, since everyone understands that a 9 am meeting will actually start at around 10 am, no-one is inconvenienced when everyone arrives at 10 am.

Definition of punctual in the English dictionary

The first definition of punctual in the dictionary is arriving or taking place at an arranged time; prompt. Other definition of punctual is having the characteristic of always keeping to arranged times, as for appointments, meetings, etc. Punctual is also precise; exact; apposite.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH PUNCTUAL


artefactual
ˌɑːrtɪˈfæktjʊəl
aspectual
æˈspɛktjʊəl
conceptual
kənˈsɛptjʊəl
conflictual
kənˈflɪktjʊəl
contactual
kɒnˈtæktjʊəl
contextual
kənˈtɛkstjʊəl
contractual
kənˈtræktjʊəl
conventual
kənˈvɛntjʊəl
effectual
ɪˈfɛktjʊəl
habitual
həˈbɪtjʊəl
intertextual
ˌɪntəˈtekstjʊəl
mutuel
ˈmjuːtjʊəl
nonfactual
ˌnɒnˈfæktjʊəl
perceptual
pəˈsɛptjʊəl
perpetual
pəˈpɛtjʊəl
ritual
ˈrɪtjʊəl
spiritual
ˈspɪrɪtjʊəl
tactual
ˈtæktjʊəl
textual
ˈtɛkstjʊəl
unpunctual
ʌnˈpʌŋktjʊəl

WORDS THAT BEGIN LIKE PUNCTUAL

puncto
punctualist
punctuality
punctually
punctuate
punctuation
punctuation mark
punctuationist
punctuative
punctuator
punctulate
punctulation
punctule
punctum
puncturable
puncturation
puncture
puncture repair kit
puncture vine
puncture wound

WORDS THAT END LIKE PUNCTUAL

actual
artifactual
counterfactual
eventual
factual
ineffectual
instinctual
intellectual
mutual
Negro spiritual
noncontractual
nonintellectual
prepunctual
revictual
the spiritual
unintellectual
unspiritual
victual
virtual
your actual

Synonyms and antonyms of punctual in the English dictionary of synonyms

SYNONYMS

SYNONYMS OF «PUNCTUAL»

The following words have a similar or identical meaning as «punctual» and belong to the same grammatical category.
synonyms of punctual

Translation of «punctual» into 25 languages

TRANSLATOR
online translator

TRANSLATION OF PUNCTUAL

Find out the translation of punctual to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.
The translations of punctual from English to other languages presented in this section have been obtained through automatic statistical translation; where the essential translation unit is the word «punctual» in English.

Translator English - Chinese

准时的
1,325 millions of speakers

Translator English - Spanish

puntual
570 millions of speakers

English

punctual
510 millions of speakers

Translator English - Hindi

पाबंद
380 millions of speakers
ar

Translator English - Arabic

دَقِيق
280 millions of speakers

Translator English - Russian

пунктуальный
278 millions of speakers

Translator English - Portuguese

pontual
270 millions of speakers

Translator English - Bengali

সময়নিষ্ঠ
260 millions of speakers

Translator English - French

ponctuel
220 millions of speakers

Translator English - Malay

Tepat masa
190 millions of speakers

Translator English - German

pünktlich
180 millions of speakers

Translator English - Japanese

時間厳守の
130 millions of speakers

Translator English - Korean

시간을 엄수하는
85 millions of speakers

Translator English - Javanese

Punctual
85 millions of speakers
vi

Translator English - Vietnamese

đúng giờ
80 millions of speakers

Translator English - Tamil

தவறாமையுடன்
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Marathi

वक्तशीर
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Turkish

dakik
70 millions of speakers

Translator English - Italian

puntuale
65 millions of speakers

Translator English - Polish

punktualny
50 millions of speakers

Translator English - Ukrainian

пунктуальний
40 millions of speakers

Translator English - Romanian

punctual
30 millions of speakers
el

Translator English - Greek

συνεπής
15 millions of speakers
af

Translator English - Afrikaans

stiptelike
14 millions of speakers
sv

Translator English - Swedish

punktlig
10 millions of speakers
no

Translator English - Norwegian

punktlig
5 millions of speakers

Trends of use of punctual

TRENDS

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «PUNCTUAL»

The term «punctual» is quite widely used and occupies the 37.935 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.
0
100%
FREQUENCY
Quite widely used
83
/100
The map shown above gives the frequency of use of the term «punctual» in the different countries.
Principal search tendencies and common uses of punctual
List of principal searches undertaken by users to access our English online dictionary and most widely used expressions with the word «punctual».

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «PUNCTUAL» OVER TIME

The graph expresses the annual evolution of the frequency of use of the word «punctual» during the past 500 years. Its implementation is based on analysing how often the term «punctual» appears in digitalised printed sources in English between the year 1500 and the present day.

Examples of use in the English literature, quotes and news about punctual

EXAMPLES

5 QUOTES WITH «PUNCTUAL»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word punctual.
1
Alfie Allen
I have to work hard to be punctual, to not lose my temper, take direction and be told what to do - and most of all listen rather than talk.
2
Cindy Crawford
Obviously, your family life is the priority, but there's still other stuff you have to get done in a day. I think the way I make it work is by taking care of myself, and that includes fitness and eating right and all those things, but also by being very organized and punctual.
3
Franklin P. Jones
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
4
Georg Simmel
Thus, the technique of metropolitan life is unimaginable without the most punctual integration of all activities and mutual relations into a stable and impersonal time schedule.
5
Billy Wilder
My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «PUNCTUAL»

Discover the use of punctual in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to punctual and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.
1
Event Structures in Linguistic Form and Interpretation
On the basis of evidence like this, Wechsler proposes that non-gradable adjectives like dead can only occur with verbs describing punctual events. Gradable adjectives on the other hand may cooccur with either durative or punctual event ...
Johannes Dölling, Tatjana Heyde-Zybatow, Martin Schäfer, 2008
2
Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and ...
It should be noted that the crucial point here is that punctual situations do not have any duration, not even duration of a very short period. Thus a punctual situation, by definition, has no internal structure, and in a language with separate  ...
Bernard Comrie, 1976
3
The Grammar of the English Tense System: A Comprehensive ...
When a durative situation is bounded, it is (by definition) nonhomogeneous and therefore the situation time cannot be a punctual portion of the time of the full situation. Rather, the situation time has the same duration as the time of the full ...
Renaat Declerck, Susan Reed, Bert Cappelle, 2006
4
Syntax: Structure, Meaning, and Function
With respect to the feature [±punctual]. achievements are the marked member of the opposition, i.e. they are [+punctual]. while accomplishments are unmarked, i.e. they are [-punctual]. It is well established that the unmarked member of a ...
Robert D. VAN VALIN (jr.), 1997
5
The Parameter of Aspect
Punctual presentation and perfective viewpoints Perfective viewpoints tend to present situations as punctual. The impression of punctuality arises from the closed nature of the perfective presentation. We conceive of a punctual situation as a ...
C.S. Smith, 1997
6
Structures and Transformations: The Romance Verb
Trabajo ella cuando se fue el (lexical DURATIVE/PUNCTUAL) AFTER se fue ( PUNCTUAL) el, trabajo (PUNCTUAL inceptive phase) ella AFTER se fue ( PUNCTUAL) el, trabajo (DURATIVE fixed time) ella ?AT THE SAME TIME AS se fue ...
Christopher J. Pountain, 1983
7
Automated Technology for Verification and Analysis: 6th ...
We distinguish thee cases for the expressions involved in our systems: (a) ndi=1 Di ∗ δi+δ is punctualif all the involvedcoefficients are algebraicnumbers;(b) ∑ ndi=1 Di∗δi +δ is quasi-punctual if all δi's are algebraic numbers, while δ ranges  ...
Sungdeok Cha, Jin-Young Choi, Moonzoo Kim, 2008
8
The Encoding of Motion Events in Chinese: Multi-morpheme ...
... are not expected to occur in Chinese. Finally, the four possible combinations of M1 and M2 with respect to [+/-punctual] are given in (12). (12) M1 M2 Examples a . (-punctual, -punctual) fe'i-hui fly-return, tui-hui'recede-retum b. (-punctual ...
Jingxia Lin, 2011
9
Exploring Time, Tense, and Aspect in Natural Language ...
2.9.1 Punctual adverbials Some adverbials are understood as specifying time- points. Following Vlach ( 1993), the term punctual adverbials will be used to refer to them. In English, punctual adverbials are usually prepositional phrases ...
Ion Androutsopoulos, 2002
10
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
9 LOCKE'S PUNCTUAL SELF 9.1 Descartes's disengaged subject, like his procedural notion of rationality, is not just an idiosyncratic conception. For all the challenges and disagreements to his dualism in modern thought, with the central idea ...
Charles Taylor, 1992

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «PUNCTUAL»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term punctual is used in the context of the following news items.
1
Virgin West Coast named as the least punctual rail company in Britain
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin West Coast is the least punctual and most complained about rail company in the country with more than a quarter of its trains ... «Daily Mail, Jul 15»
2
7 Steps for Getting the Chronically Late Employee to Be Punctual
When you own your own business, you rely on your employees to help you run your company efficiently. If an employee is consistently late, others in the ... «Entrepreneur, Jun 15»
3
Britain's least-punctual train arrives early (but only after Southern …
An infamous train service dubbed Britain's least-punctual has arrived early for the first time this year - but only after the timetable was tweaked. Statistics show ... «Telegraph.co.uk, May 15»
4
S7 voted most punctual airline in world
Siberian-based S7 Airlines has been named as the world's most punctual carrier by a respected global flight data company. According to FlightStats, some 91.36 ... «The Siberian Times, May 15»
5
Southern Rail fixes least-punctual train route by changing timetable
The rail company operating Britain's least-punctual train route has come up with a way of improving the service - by altering the timetable. Photograph: Chris ... «The Guardian, May 15»
6
Beijing Airport Leads in Flight Punctuality in China
Beijing Capital International Airport secured the top post in flight punctuality among Chinese domestic airports, according to a report by VeryZhun, a local air ... «Yibada, Mar 15»
7
Virgin holds title of most punctual airline for fourth month in a row
Virgin Australia has pipped Qantas as the country's most punctual airline for the fourth month in a row, the latest government transport figures show. The contest ... «Sydney Morning Herald, Mar 15»
8
Night Owls Are Not Very Punctual
According to a study published in the March edition of Current Psychology, night owls are less punctual than their early-rising peers — at least, when you ask ... «New York Magazine, Mar 15»
9
From Switzerland to Nigeria, here are the most and least punctual
As with the other cultural scales we've examined in “The Culture Map,” the Scheduling scale is profoundly affected by a number of historic factors that shape the ... «Business Insider Australia, Mar 15»
10
Jetstar most punctual NZ domestic airline in 2014
Airline on-time performance results confirm that Jetstar was New Zealand's most punctual domestic airline in 2014. Figures show that Jetstar flights were the ... «Scoop.co.nz, Feb 15»

REFERENCE
« EDUCALINGO. Punctual [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/punctual>. Apr 2024 ».
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