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Words for Signs, Symbols, and AccentsIn addition to the 26 letters of the English alphabet, our writing is accompanied by a wide range of punctuation marks, auxiliary signs, archaic letters, diacritical marks, and other symbols. Many of these have their own names, and this list provides the little-known names for 40 of these weird characters and symbols. Curiously, some of the signs in most common usage today, like @ (the 'at' sign), have no commonly used single English name (although many have been suggested over the years), and are thus excluded from this list. Unlike most of the glossaries of the Phrontistery, this one has an additional column that should show the proper appearance of the signs associated with these weird words.
Word
agma asterism breve caesura caret cedilla circumflex crotchet diaeresis diesis diple edh ellipsis guillemet hacek hedera interpunct interrobang ipseand lozenge macron macrotone makaf obelisk obelus octothorp ogonek pilcrow punctus schwa semiquote separatrix solidus stenotone thorn tilde tittle umlaut virgule yogh ŋ ⁂ ˘ | ^ ¸ ^ [ ¨ ‡ > ð … « ̌ ❧ • ‽ & ◊ ¯ ¯ - † ÷ # ˛ ¶ . ə ' | / ˘ þ ~ · ¨ / ȝ
Definition
symbol or sound for a velar nasal consonant "ng" cluster of three asterisks arranged in triangle to draw attention to passage mark over letter to indicate a short vowel sound vertical line in a text used to indicate a pause or prosodic break mark used to note an omission mark placed under letter c to indicate pronunciation as s accent mark placed above vowel to indicate sound change square bracket two dots placed over a vowel to indicate a syllable break (naïve) double dagger sign mark in margin of text to indicate rejected verses or new paragraph letter in Old English representing voiced 'th' sound three dots used to indicate a break, pause, or unfinished thought (…) angled quotation marks used in French and some other foreign texts mark placed over consonant in Slavic languages to indicate palatalization ivy-leaf sign used to separate paragraphs point or dot between words in•place•of•spaces combination of exclamation point and question mark old name for the ampersand diamond-shaped mark indicating possibility in formal logic straight line placed above vowel to indicate stress macron; straight line placed above vowel to indicate stress hyphen used to join words in Hebrew texts dagger sign used as a critical mark or note division sign; mark used to indicate unacceptable passages hash; pound sign mark placed under Slavic consonant to indicate nasalization paragraph-mark point used in medieval manuscripts to indicate a short pause letter indicating a neutral vowel in unstressed syllables single quotation mark straight vertical line formerly used to separate integers from decimals forward slash breve; mark over letter to indicate a short vowel sound letter in Old and Middle English representing unvoiced 'th' sound mark indicating approximation or, over a letter, nasalization or palatalization dot over the letter i or j two dots placed over a vowel to indicate change in vowel sound (Führer) forward slash letter in Middle English representing y or 'hh' sound I hope you have found this site to be useful. If you have any corrections, additions, or comments, please contact me. Please note that I am not able to respond to all requests. Please consult a major dictionary before e-mailing your query. All material on this page © 1996-2021 Stephen Chrisomalis. Links to this page may be made without permission. |