noun
- marks or signs added to letters to indicate pronunciation, stress, or meaning
Usage: linguistics; typography
Examples
- The French word ‘café’ uses diacritics over the letter ‘e’.
- Spanish diacritics help distinguish between words like ‘si’ and ‘sí’.
- Many keyboards allow you to type diacritics for foreign languages.
- The accent marks in ‘résumé’ are examples of diacritics.
- Students learning German must pay attention to diacritics like the umlaut.
- Some languages rely heavily on diacritics to convey proper pronunciation.