exclamation mark

Punctuation mark (!) used to indicate emphasis or strong emotion (‘That's terrible!’). It is appropriate after interjections (‘Rats!’), emphatic greetings (‘Hi!’), and orders (‘Shut up!’), as well as those sentences beginning How or What that are not questions (‘How embarrassing!’, ‘What a surprise!’).

The exclamation mark is most often seen in direct speech. Its use is kept to a minimum in narrative prose and technical writing.

Within a quotation an exclamation mark may be placed in square brackets to indicate that the writer or editor is surprised by something.