Grave accent

◌̀
Grave accent
U+0300 ◌̀ COMBINING GRAVE ACCENT (diacritic)
See also
  • U+0060 ` GRAVE ACCENT ('backtick' symbol)
  • U+02CB ˋ MODIFIER LETTER GRAVE ACCENT (diacritic)
This page uses notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis. For the meaning of how ⟨ ⟩, | |, / /, and [ ] are used here, see this page.

The grave accent (◌̀) (/ɡreɪv/ GRAYV[1][2] or /ɡrɑːv/ GRAHV[1][2]) is a diacritical mark used to varying degrees in French, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Catalan and many other western European languages as well as for a few unusual uses in English. It is also used in other languages using the Latin alphabet, such as Mohawk and Yoruba, and with non-Latin writing systems such as the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets and the Bopomofo or Zhuyin Fuhao semi-syllabary. It has no single meaning, but can indicate pitch, stress, or other features.

For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed characters are available. For less-used and compound diacritics, a combining character facility is available. A free-standing version of the symbol (`), commonly called a backtick, also exists and has acquired other uses.

  1. ^ a b Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, archived from the original on 25 September 2015, retrieved 9 August 2018.
  2. ^ a b Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford Dictionaries Online, Oxford University Press, archived from the original on 16 May 2001.