acute accent
- noun
- /əˈkjuːt ˈæksɛnt/
- Specialized
:
acento agudo
- When learning to write in Portuguese, you will need to understand how to use the acute accent on letters like 'á' and 'é'.
Examples
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To type an acute accent or an umlaut is a major operation.
Blog text (16) -
In Spanish, the acute accent changes how you pronounce the vowels in words like 'café' and 'papá'.
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And then we have acute accents, accento acuto.
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Many French words use an acute accent, such as 'éléphant' and 'résumé', to indicate stress.
Synonyms
5
4.8
A mark above a vowel showing how to pronounce it
1
9.9
A mark above a vowel showing that the vowel has a different sound
1
5.8
A small sign above a syllable that shows which part to say more strongly
A mark placed above or below a letter to show which syllable is strong and how to say it
A small sign written on a letter to show how to say it or to change its meaning
A small mark that changes the sound of a letter
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'acute' specifies a subtype of 'accent', so a learner who knows both words can infer this is a particular accent mark placed on a vowel. The concept is also cross-linguistically common (e.g. French 'accent aigu', Spanish 'acento agudo'), which makes the relation obvious to learners.
Etymology
Acute accent is the name for the small slanted mark ´ put above a vowel. The word acute suggests 'sharp' or 'pointed' and accent is a mark that shows how to say a letter, so the mark tells you the vowel sound or where to put the 'stress'.