acute accent

Noun

Meaning

a mark placed above a vowel to indicate pronunciation

Source: WordNet

Synonyms

acute ague emphasis accent umlaut cedilla dieresis severe stress extreme accent fine accent high accent pointed accent smart accent subtle accent acute sounds
Show all synonyms

Hypernyms

accent accent mark

Examples

1. Traditional orthography as in Roman Catholic service books (stressed syllable marked with an acute accent on words of three syllables or more). Source: Internet

Diacritics Three kinds of diacritic were in common use: the acute accent ´, the grave accent `, and the circumflex accent ˆ. These were normally only marked on vowels (e.g. í, è, â); but see below regarding que. Source: Internet

Handwriting in Latin from 1595 The acute accent marked a stressed syllable, but was usually confined to those where the stress was not in its normal position, as determined by vowel length and syllabic weight. Source: Internet

Exceptions to those rules are indicated by an acute accent mark over the vowel of the stressed syllable. Source: Internet

For example, the acute accent may indicate a high tone, a rising tone, or, in the case of Chinese, any tone called "rising" (上) for historical reasons. Source: Internet

However café is now sometimes facetiously pronounced "caff", while in pâté, the acute accent is helpful to distinguish it from pate. Source: Internet

Close letter words and terms

acute abdo acute abdomen acute abscess acute alcoholism acute angle acute angles