accent mark

Noun

accent mark (plural accent marks)

1. (strictly) A 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).
   • 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. (broadly) Any 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. A mark used to represent specific stress on a note.
4. A mark placed after a letter designating a note of music to indicate the octave in which it occurs.
5. A prime symbol.