What is the semicolon in C++?

Question

Roughly speaking in C++ there are:

• operators (+, -, *, [], new, ...)
• identifiers (names of classes, variables, functions,...)
• const literals (10, 2.5, "100", ...)
• some keywords (int, class, typename, mutable, ...)
• brackets ({, }, <, >)
• preprocessor (#, ## ...).

But what is the semicolon?

Answer 1

The semicolon is a punctuator, see 2.13 §1

The lexical representation of C++ programs includes a number of preprocessing tokens which are used in the syntax of the preprocessor or are converted into tokens for operators and punctuators

Answer 2

It is part of the syntax and therein element of several statements. In EBNF:

<do-statement>     ::= 'do' <statement> 'while' '(' <expression> ')' ';'  <goto-statement>     ::= 'goto' <label> ';'  <for-statement>     ::= 'for' '(' <for-initialization> ';' <for-control> ';' <for-iteration> ')' <statement>  <expression-statement>     ::= <expression> ';'  <return-statement>     ::= 'return' <expression> ';' 

This list is not complete. Please see my comment.