comment definition

English comment definition

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒm.ɛnt/, [ˈkʰɒm.ɛnt]
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑmɛnt/, [ˈkʰɑmɛnt]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English coment, comment, from Old French coment (“commentary”), from Late Latin commentum (“comment, interpretation”), from Classical Latin commentum (“invention, fabrication”).

Noun

comment (plural comments)

1. A spoken or written remark.

   I have no comment on that.

   Pay attention to the teacher's comments in the margin of your marked essay.

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron; and she looked it, always trim and trig and smooth of surface like a converted yacht cleared for action.

   • 2015 November 30, Shane O'Mara, Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation‎^[1], Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 12:

     Santorum, in a comment regarding Senator John McCain's repudiation of torture, stated, "He doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they've broken they become cooperative" (Summers 2011).

2. (linguistics) The part of a sentence that provides new information regarding the current theme.

   Synonym: rheme

3. (programming) A remark embedded in source code in such a way that it will be ignored by the compiler or interpreter, typically to help people to understand the code.

Descendants

• → Japanese: コメント (komento)
• → Korean: 코멘트 (komenteu)

Translations

See also

• pragma

Etymology 2

From Middle English commenten, comenten, from Latin commentārī (“to consider thoroughly, think over, discuss, write upon”).

Verb

comment (third-person singular simple present comments, present participle commenting, simple past and past participle commented)

1. (transitive) To remark.
   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 731476803:

     “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314:

     "A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there. […]."

   • 2003 July 5, Pierre Salinger, ABC News, “Analysis: Top film choices”, in NPR_Saturday:

     I think Mamet always comments that commerce really comes down to just a confidence game

   • 2009 Winter, John M. Kang, “Manliness and the Constitution”, in Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, volume 32, number 1, page 261:

     As Cambridge historian Mervyn James commented, "silly quarrels escalated into battles in the streets."

2. (intransitive, with "on" or "about") To make remarks or notes.
3. (transitive, obsolete) To comment or remark on.
   • 1677, Lancelot Addison, A Modest Plea for the Clergy:

     […] who have expounded Scripture out of its Senses, and have so Commented the Laws thereof

4. (transitive, software, of code) To insert comments into (source code).

   I wish I'd commented this complicated algorithm back when I remembered how it worked.

5. (transitive, software, of code) To comment out (code); to disable by converting into a comment.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• document

Further reading

• comment in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• comment in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• comment at OneLook Dictionary Search.

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French comment definition

Etymology

comme +‎ -ment^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.mɑ̃/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑ̃

Adverb

comment

1. how

   Comment te sens-tu ? ― How do you feel?

Derived terms

• comment allez-vous, comment vas-tu, comment ça va (“how are you”)
• comment ça
• comment cela
• comment les zaricos, comment sont les zaricos
• et comment
• n'importe comment
• porquoi du comment

Descendants

• → German: Komment
• Louisiana Creole French: konmen

Further reading

• “comment”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

References

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Middle French comment definition

Alternative forms

• cõment

Adverb

comment

1. how (in a given manner)
2. (interrogative) how (in what manner)

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Old French comment definition

Adverb

comment

1. Alternative form of comant

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Portuguese comment definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English comment.

Noun

comment m (plural comments)

1. (Internet slang) comment, remark

   Synonym: comentário