umlaut

plural umlauts · plural umlaute

1. human sciencesAn assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants.

   In fits of concealed despair that went unnoticed even by those close enough to touch, Julien cursed the language of umlauts, eszetts, and gerunds.

   1997, Matthew Piepenburg, Time and the Maiden, →ISBN, page 62

   1 more example

   A tittle is more or less the same thing (the dot over an i, for instance), except that it can be traced back to Medieval Latin for a little mark over or under a letter, such as an accent ague or a cedilla. I don't know whether an umlaut is one or two tittles. Maybe it's a jot and a tittle side by side.

   2008, Roy Blount, Alphabet juice: the energies, gists, and spirits of letters

2. human sciencesThe umlaut process (as above) that occurred historically in Germanic languages whereby back vowels became front vowels when followed by syllable containing a front vocoid (e.g. Germanic lūsiz > Old English lȳs(i) > Modern English lice).
3. human sciencesA vowel so assimilated.
4. communicationsThe diacritical mark ( ¨ ) placed over a vowel when it indicates a (rounded) front vowel
5. informalcommunicationsSynonym of diaeresis.

   "Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables.

   1 more example

   California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸).

   2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 04 Apr 2025

   Synonyms: diaeresis

present singular third person umlauts · participle present umlauting · participle past umlauted · past umlauted

1. transitiveTo place an umlaut over (a vowel).

   We kept some of the foreign alphabet symbols such as the accented and umlauted vowels and Greek letters and used the rest of the space for more esoteric linguistic symbols such as "barred-l," and "engma."

   1989, Elizabeth A. Edwards, “A Computer Column for All Seasons”, in Margaret S. Boone, editor, Practicing Anthropology, volume 11, number 2

2. transitivehuman sciencesTo modify (a word) so that an umlaut is required in it.

   an umlauting vowel

   1 more example

   These, together with (some) Romansh lects, belong to our West Rhaetian; the /ȫ/ also supported by two lects from the Ticino which by our criteria are NWIt, and by the partially umlauting lects of Lombardy which together with (some) Engadine lects belong to our East Rhaetian.

   1980, Frederick B. Agard, The Genealogy of the French Language, published in Contributions to historical linguistics, →ISBN, page 222