comment

Etymology

From Middle English coment, from Old French coment (“commentary”), from Late Latin commentum, from comminisci (“to invent”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒmɛnt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑmɛnt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

comment (plural comments)

1. A spoken remark.

   I have no comment on that.

   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), 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.

2. (programming) A remark in source code which does not affect the behavior of the program.

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, Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 29686887 , chapter IV:

     “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.”

   • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:

     "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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fuller to this entry?)

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.

Further reading

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

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?

References

Further reading

• “comment” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Alternative forms

• cõment

Adverb

comment

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

Adverb

comment

1. Alternative form of comant

Etymology

Borrowed from English comment.

Noun

comment m (plural comments)

1. (Internet slang) comment, remark