Macron (diacritic)

A macron is a <a href="/facts/Diacritical_mark/Rw6lMzQW">diacritical mark</a>: it is a straight bar ¯ placed above a letter, usually a <a href="/facts/Vowel/BNhCeFtH">vowel</a>. Its name derives from <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greek/LIK7NlUh">Ancient Greek</a> μακρόν (makrón) 'long' because it was originally used to mark <a href="/facts/Syllable_weight/vN45UI2z">long or heavy</a> <a href="/facts/Syllable/Ylt7pyJe">syllables</a> in <a href="/facts/Meter_(poetry)/uIzxuQHA">Greco-Roman metrics</a>. It now more often marks a <a href="/facts/Vowel_length/BhBqJJu3">long</a> <a href="/facts/Vowel/BNhCeFtH">vowel</a>. In the <a href="/facts/International_Phonetic_Alphabet/2e7jmUaG">International Phonetic Alphabet</a>, the macron is used to indicate a <a href="/facts/Tone_(linguistics)/eprhXrWJ">mid-tone</a>; the sign for a long vowel is instead a modified triangular <a href="/facts/Colon_(punctuation)/se9fjJa4">colon</a> ⟨ː⟩.
The opposite is the <a href="/facts/Breve/W3ww5jjb">breve</a> ⟨˘⟩, which marks a short or light syllable or a short vowel.

Macron (diacritic) open-in-new

Macron (diacritic)