- Linguistics.
- A mark (¨) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate that they are to be pronounced as separate sounds rather than a diphthong, as in naïve.
- A mark (¨) placed over a vowel, such as the final vowel in Brontë, to indicate that the vowel is not silent.
- Poetry. A break or pause in a line of verse that occurs when the end of a word and the end of a metrical foot coincide.
[Late Latin diaeresis, from Greek diairesis, from diairein, to divide : dia-, apart; see dia– + hairein, to take.]







