adjective
- relating to or being a mark (such as an accent, cedilla, or umlaut) added to a letter to indicate a specific pronunciation
Usage: linguistics; typography
Examples
- The diacritical marks in French help indicate proper pronunciation.
- Spanish uses diacritical accents to show stress patterns.
- The word ‘café’ contains a diacritical mark over the e.
- Students learning German must pay attention to diacritical symbols like umlauts.
- Many keyboards allow you to type diacritical marks for foreign languages.
- The diacritical cedilla appears under the c in French words like ‘français’.