Colon (punctuation)

This article is about the punctuation mark. For a colon-like character used as an alphabetic letter in some languages, rather than as punctuation, see Colon (letter). For other uses, see Colon (disambiguation).

:o
Colon
In Unicode	U+003A : COLON (:)
Different from
Different from	U+20A1 ₡ COLON SIGN
Related
See also	U+003B ; SEMICOLON Other types of colon, see list below.

The colon, :, is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots aligned vertically. A colon often precedes an explanation, a list, or a quoted sentence. It is also used between hours and minutes in time, between certain elements in medical journal citations, between chapter and verse in Bible citations, between two numbers in a ratio, and, in the US, for salutations in business letters and other formal letters.