# Marking whole word

DevFeed: [Marking whole word](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/marking-whole-word-34494.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tapoueh.org/blog/2013/02/marking-whole-word/>)

Author: Dimitri Fontaine PostgreSQL Major Contributor; Author

Published: 2013-02-08T16:15:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Dimitri Fontaine](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/dimitri-fontaine.md>)

Topics: [Emacs](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/emacs.md>), [identifier](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/identifier.md>), [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>)

Tags: [command](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/command.md>), [emacs](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/emacs.md>), [identifier](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/identifier.md>), [programming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/programming.md>)

## AI overview

A practical Emacs tutorial about selecting an entire word or identifier with a key chord, expanding the selection to the next expression, and using expand-region for broader selections. It also discusses selecting the word under the point when the point is in the middle of it.

## Source excerpt

I've discovered recently another Emacs facility that I since then use several times a day, and I wonder how I did without it before: C-M-SPC runs the command mark-sexp. *Well, `mark-sexp` apparently is related to the Sex Pistols* It's pretty simple actually, when you have the point at the beginning of a word or an identifier (containing numbers, dashes, underscores and other punctuation signs), you can select the whole of it in a single key chord!