The full point, full stop, dot, or period is a punctuation mark. It is used for several purposes, the most common of which is the end of an declaratory sentence (as opposed to a question or exclamation mark); the use of this term-sentence is properly, or the exact value of a full stop.

Full stop is also often used alone to indicate omitted characters. It can be placed after the initial letter used to stand for a name, or sometimes after each individual letter in the initialization or abbreviation, for example “U.S.A.”; this style is diminishing, and many initiatives, such as the UK or NATO, are individually accepted norms.

Full end is also often used at the end of abbreviations in words – in British usage, mainly abbreviations, such as Rev., but not after abbreviations, like Revd; in American English, however, is used in both cases.

A full point also has several contexts in mathematics and computers, where it can be called a point (short for decimal point) or a dot. The full point glyph is sometimes called the base point, because it is typographically a point on the baseline. This term distinguishes it from interpolation (raised point). Although a full stop applies only to the whole point when it is used to complete a sentence, the distinction drawn from at least 1897 is not supported by all modern style guides and dictionaries.

In practice, scribes most employed the terminal dot; the rest are obsolete and later replaced by other symbols. From the 9th century a full stop began to appear as a low mark instead of a high one; With the advent of printing in Western Europe, the low score was regular and then universal.