Dictionary

low point en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A nadir; the time when things are at their worst.
   • The low point of Carsley's time in charge, which will end after the Uefa Nations League meeting with the Republic Of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday, was the fiasco of the home defeat to Greece in October, a loss mainly engineered by his own madcap, non-striker, team selection. 2024 November 14, Phil McNulty, “'A night of redemption for Carsley offers real hope for Tuchel'”, in BBC Sport:
2. The lowest position that something attains.
3. The Ancient Greek punctuation mark ., sitting on the baseline, lower than the middle point and the high point, used for a medium pause.
   • The Tours scriptorium, however, in the ninth century, still used the high point for periods and the low point for a lesser pause. 1964, Noël Denholm-Young, Handwriting in England and Wales, University of Wales, page 77:
   • In the earlier system a full stop was represented by a high point (στιγμὴ τελεία); the pause of our semi-colon was represented by a low point (ὑποστιγμή); and the pause of the comma was signaled by a middle point, (στιγμὴ μέση) (though, according to Bruce Metzger, the value assigned to these last two marks could vary among scribes). The use of the middle point eventually died out, its place having been taken by the comma starting about the ninth century. In contrast, Bryennios noted that in H54 the στιγμὴ τελεία/fullstop was represented by a low point; the (more common) pause of a semi-colon was signaled by a στιγμὴ μέση or ἄνω, i.e., a middle or high point; and the modern comma sign had now become the ὑποστιγμη, i.e. the shortest pause. 2012, Nancy Pardee, The Genre and Development of the Didache: A Text-linguistic Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, page 81:
   • A low point (the subdistinctio) was used to indicate a minor medial pause, after a comma, or where the sense (sensus) is incomplete; a medial point (the media distinctio) indicated a major medial pause, after a colon, or where the sense is complete but the meaning (sententia) is not; and a high point (the distinctio) indicated a final pause, after a periodus, or where the sententia is completed. 1993, Malcolm Beckwith Parkes, Pause and Effect, University of California Press, page 13:
   • In the punctuation of the ninth century the shortest stop (answering to our comma) is the low point (.), the Greek ὑποστιγμή. Next in length to it is the middle point, at the same height above the line as the centre, for instance, of the letter o (⸳), the μέση στιγμή. Slightly longer, and answering to our colon or semicolon, is the superior point (·) at the level of the top, for instance, of an o. This answers in form of the Greek τελεία στιγμή, which, however, was originally a full stop rather than a colon. 1883, John Wordsworth, “Introduction”, in The Gospel according to St. Matthew from the St. Germain Ms. (g1), now numbered Lat. 11553 in the National Library at Paris with introduction descriptive of the manuscript and five appendices, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page xl:
   • Such punctuation as there is in the papyri consists of a high point, at the top of the line of writing, for a full stop. This is found also in early codices, together with a middle point, which serves for lighter punctuation. Eventually the latter becomes a low point, like our period. 1980, Berthold Louis Ullman, Ancient Writing and its Influence, University of Toronto Press, page 213:

Forms

Antonyms

high point

Coordinates

ano teleia · high point · middle point · raised dot · high dot · raised point

Synonyms

low dot