Etymology

circumflex

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Today it means: A diacritical mark (ˆ) placed over a vowel in the orthography or transliteration of many languages to change its pronunciation; while in some other languages over a consonant. Full definition →

Latin circumflexus
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The story

  1. Latin · learned borrowing fromcircumflexus“bent about”
  2. English todaycircumflex

Learned borrowing from Latin circumflexus (“bent about”), calqued from Ancient Greek περισπώμενος (perispṓmenos, “drawn around”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.