1. a diacritical mark (¯) placed over a vowel to indicate that it has a long sound
Usage: linguistics; typography

Examples

• The teacher explained that the macron over the ‘a’ in ‘māke’ shows it’s pronounced with a long vowel sound.
• In Latin dictionaries, macrons help students know how to pronounce vowels correctly.
• The word ‘rōmaji’ uses macrons to indicate long vowels in Japanese romanization.
• Without the macron, it’s difficult to distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in some languages.
• The typography software automatically places macrons over designated vowels.
• Students learning classical languages often struggle with when to use macrons in their writing.