What does diacritic mean?
A diacritic is a mark added to a letter of the alphabet that modifies its pronunciation or distinguishes it from other letters that would otherwise look and be read identically. Familiar examples include the acute accent in French café, the tilde in Spanish señor, the umlaut in German über, and the cedilla in French garçon. Diacritics do not form part of a language's core spelling so much as refine it: they signal vowel length, stress, tone, or a wholly different consonant sound. The term is used mainly in linguistic, typographic, and educational contexts, and it can also serve as an adjective meaning relating to such marks. Because many languages treat these marks as essential rather than decorative — omitting them in Spanish or Vietnamese can produce wrong words entirely — diacritics are central to accurate writing, translation, typesetting, and digital text handling across alphabets.
A mark, such as an accent, cedilla, or tilde, added above, below, or through a letter to indicate a change in its pronunciation or to distinguish it from similar letters.
"Learners of Portuguese must master a range of diacritics, including the circumflex and the grave accent."
Usually used in the plural when discussing a language's overall set of marks.
Relating to or functioning as a diacritic; serving to distinguish one letter or sound from another.
"The dictionary includes a diacritical guide showing how each accented character should be pronounced."
Standard plural; frequently used collectively to refer to all such marks in a given writing system.
"The search engine normalizes text by stripping diacritics before matching queries."
The word 'diacritic' comes from the same Greek root as 'critic' — both are literally about 'judging' or 'separating out', and a diacritic's whole job is separating one letter's meaning from another's.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of diacritic
The word 'diacritic' derives from the Greek 'diakritikos', meaning 'distinguishing', formed from the verb 'diakrinein', 'to separate or distinguish', which combines 'dia-' ('apart') with 'krinein' ('to judge or decide'). This is the same root behind English words like 'critical' and 'criterion'. It entered English via Latinized scholarly usage in the late seventeenth century, initially as an adjective describing distinguishing marks before becoming established as a noun for the marks themselves.
Related word forms
How diacritic is actually used
'Diacritic' functions primarily as a noun; the adjectival form 'diacritical' is also standard. The word is largely technical, appearing in linguistics, typography, and discussions of foreign-language orthography. Pluralization is regular ('diacritics'), and the plural is common when referring to the full set of marks in a language's writing system.
Easily confused with diacritic
A dialectic is a process of logical argument or discourse between opposing ideas, whereas a diacritic is a written mark added to a letter to alter or specify its pronunciation.