exclamation point

American

noun

the sign (!) used in writing after an exclamation.
this mark sometimes used in writing two or more times in succession to indicate intensity of emotion, loudness, etc..

Long live the Queen!!
this mark sometimes used without accompanying words in writing direct discourse to indicate a speaker's dumbfounded astonishment.

“His wife just gave birth to quintuplets.”(!)

exclamation point Cultural

A punctuation mark (!) used after an abrupt and emphatic statement or after a command: “‘Help!’ he cried, as his boat floated toward the edge of Niagara Falls.”

First recorded in 1860–65

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It starts with the exclamation point, right there in the title.

From Los Angeles Times

The final exclamation point, however, came from a bunch of guys who were missing more than a few teeth.

From The Wall Street Journal

He had circled it himself, in red, with exclamation points, because it was the last day of school for the year.

From Literature

“It’d be great if you had an exclamation point,” one of the owners says to her husband as she takes in the sign.

From Salon

In a follow-up, the AI made sure to use at least one exclamation point.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023