Punctum, plural puncta, adjective punctate, is an anatomical term for a sharp point or tip. It may also refer to:
Medical
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Lacrimal punctum, a minute opening on the margins of the eyelids that collect tears produced by the lacrimal glands
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Blind spot (vision)
A blind spot, scotoma, is an obscuration of the visual field. A particular blind spot known as the ''physiological blind spot'', "blind point", or ''punctum caecum'' in medical literature, is the place in the visual field that corresponds to ...
, or ''punctum cecum'', the blind spot in human vision corresponding to the location of the optic disk
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Erb's point (neurology) or ''punctum nervosum'', a nerve point in the human neck
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Imperforate lacrimal punctum, a congenital disorder of dogs
Unrelated species named punctum
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Allium punctum'', a species of wild onion
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Amyna punctum'', a moth of the family Noctuidae
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Cinguloterebra punctum'', a sea snail of the family Terebridae
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Phylloxiphia punctum'', a moth of the family Sphingidae
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Sepsis punctum'', a fly of the family Sepsidae
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Zygaena punctum'', a moth of the family Zygaenidae
Other
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''Punctum'' (gastropod), a genus of land snails
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Punctum delens, typographic marks used to indicate deletion
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Neume
A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and some Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff (music), staff notation.
The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the gener ...
, the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation
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Equant, punctum aequans, is a mathematical concept developed by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD to account for the observed motion of heavenly bodies
*A concept in the 1980 French philosophy book ''
Camera Lucida''
*A medieval unit of time corresponding to a
quarter-hour
*In photography, a term used by
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...
to refer to an incidental but personally poignant detail in a photograph
*Punctate, a
botanical term meaning marked with an indefinite number of dots, spots, pits or glands
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