1. a punctuation mark (;) used to separate major sentence elements of equal grammatical rank

Examples

• Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses.
• The meeting is at 3:00; don’t be late.
• She studied hard; however, she still felt nervous about the test.
• The recipe calls for flour, sugar, and eggs; butter and vanilla; and chocolate chips.
• I wanted to go to the beach; it was raining, though.
• The semicolon is stronger than a comma but weaker than a period.