Translingual

Etymology

? may derive from Qo, with the Q written over the o, an abbreviation of Latin quaestio ‎(“question”), placed at the end of a question to mark it as such.^[1]

Punctuation mark

?

1. Marks a preceding passage written in Latin script as a question.
   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Lya Wyler, Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix, Rocco, page 46:

     Olho-Tonto, você sabe que isso é nojento, não sabe?

     Mad-Eye, you know that this is disgusting, don't you?

2. (comics) Used by itself to convey that a character is confused.

   Character #1: "I have no time to explain! Have you seen a Big Bad Wolf blowing down various houses?"

   Character #2: "?"

3. For the reversed question mark used in some right-to-left languages (including Arabic and Persian), see ؟.

Symbol

?

1. Indicates an unknown word, phrase, text or an unknown numerical value.
   • 2009, Terry Stickels, Math Puzzles and Brainteasers, Grades 3-5: Over 300 Puzzles that Teach Math and Problem-Solving Skills, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 9780470564677, page 6:

     What is the next number in the sequence below?

     1    4    9    16    25    36     ? 

2. (chess) In algebraic notation, marks a bad move.
3. (programming) A wildcard for one character in query language.
4. (programming) The ternary operator in some programming languages.
5. (regular expressions) Detects zero or one occurences of the preceding element.

   The string colou?r matches both "color" and "colour".

6. (networking) In a URL, begins a query string (a series of data formatted as field-value pairs).

   http://example.com/form.asp?name1=value1&name2=value2

Usage notes

• Its English name is variously question mark, interrogation mark, interrogation point, eroteme.

Quotations

For usage examples of this term, see Citations:?.

Derived terms

• ﹖ (small form variant)
• (?)

See also

• ¿ ? (Spanish)
• ??
• ?!
• !
• !?
• ‽
• !!
• ؟ (Arabic/Persian)
• ？ (CJK)
• ; (Greek)
• ՞ (Armenian)

Punctuation

References

1. ↑ Alexander Humez, 1987, A B C et cetera: the life & times of the Roman alphabet

English

Noun

? ‎(plural ?s)

1. (text messaging) A question.

   i hav a ? 4 u (I have a question for you)

2. objects seen/shaped as the question mark

   a ? block (a question-mark block)

Spanish

Punctuation mark

¿ ?

1. Used in ¿ ?.
2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (nonstandard) Marks a preceding passage as a question, without the starting ¿, as in English and other languages.

   Cómo estás? — How are you?

See also

• ¿ ?
• ¡ !

Usage notes

As SMS messaging and other forms of electronic communication have become more common, some Spanish-speakers use only ? for questions and ! for exclamations, leaving out the initial typographical mark. This is considered non-standard usage.