accent mark

plural accent marks

1. strictlyhuman sciencesA diacritical mark or character used in writing to indicate the place of stress (spoken accent), or to indicate the nature or quality of the vowel marked (such as long vowel versus short vowel).

   The Italian word è (which means "is") is written with a grave accent mark.

   2 more examples

   Written Spanish uses acute accent marks very precisely, to show where the stress falls whenever it does not follow the default patterns; this practice is part of the highly phonemic nature of Spanish orthography.

   The name of the French painter Paul Cézanne is written with an acute accent mark.

2. broadlyhuman sciencesAny diacritical mark.

   Student: Why does the word Čech have an accent mark on it? Teacher: That mark is called a háček or caron. It tells the reader that the letter sounds like [ch] as in "church", not like [k] as in "carrot" or [s] as in "celery".

   Synonyms: diacritic, diacritical mark

3. entertainmentA mark used to represent specific stress on a note.
4. entertainmentA mark placed after a letter designating a note of music to indicate the octave in which it occurs.
5. mathematicsA prime symbol.