diacritical (diakritikal)

Serving to distinguish; distinguishing; distinctive: as, a IMG:content-2547.png:[blocks in formation] diacritical mark, point, or sign. - Diacritical curdiadem (di'a-dem), v. t. [ rent, in elect., a magnetic current which will produce in an iron coil diacritical magnetization, or a magnetization equal to one half saturation. Diacritical mark, point or sign, a dot, line, or other mark added or put adjacent to a letter or sign in order to distinguish it from another of similar form, or to give it a different phonetic value, or to indicate some particular accent, tone, stre , or emphasis, as in schemes for the transliteration of foreign languages into Roman letters, or for indicating the exact pronunciation of words, as in the scheme of marking pro pp. used as adj., after L. diadem at us, diademed; from the noun.] To adorn with or as if with a diadem; crown. And Dauid shal be diademyd, and daunten alle oure enemyes. Piers Plowman (C), iv. 444. Not so, when diadem'd with rays divine, Touch'd with the flame that breaks from Virtue's shrine. Pope , Epil. to Satires, ii. 232. nunciation used in this dictionary. Thus, the marks at Diadem a (dī-a-de'mä), n. [NL., tached to a in the forms a, a, a, are diacritical marks, or diacritics. So in the angular German running-hand the letter u ( u ) is written thus, a, to distinguish it from n(n); and the dot over the i, formerly used also over y, has a like office. Diacritical marks and points are regularly used as a part of the alphabetical systems of many languages. From "f," in the Iceland ick alphabet, "v" is distinguished only by a diacritical point . Johnson , Grammar of the English Tongue.