The question mark (?), also known as an interrogation point, question point, query, or eroteme, is a punctuation mark that replaces the period at the end of an interrogative sentence. It can also be used mid-sentence to mark a merely interrogative phrase, where it functions similarly to a comma, such as in the single sentence "Where shall we go?and what shall we do?", but this usage is increasingly rare.

The question mark is not used for indirect questions. The question mark character is also often used in place of missing or unknown data. Lynne Truss attributes an early form of the question mark to Alcuin of York.

Truss describes the punctus interrogativus of the late 700s as "a lightning flash, striking from right to left", a mark looking like this. The punctuation system of Aelius Donatus, current through the Early Middle Ages, used only simple dots at various heights. This early question mark was a decoration of one of these dots, with the "lightning flash" perhaps meant to denote intonation, and perhaps associated with early musical notation like neumes.

The symbol is also sometimes thought to originate from the Latin quaestiō (that is, qvaestio), meaning "question", which was abbreviated during the Middle Ages to Qo. The uppercase Q was written above the lowercase o, and this mark was transformed into the modern symbol.

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