Colon (punctuation)
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A colon is a mark consisting of two points arranged vertically (:). As a punctuation mark it is used in many languages. It is also used in mathematics to show ratios: a ratio of five to four can be written 5:4.
Punctuation mark
Like a full-stop (BrE, known as a period in AmE), a colon can only follow a grammatically complete utterance. The same is true of the semi-colon. (In the case of the full stop/period the complete utterance is called a sentence.)