cedilla

[ si-dil-uh ]

noun
  1. Phonetics, Orthography. a diacritic (¸) placed under a consonant letter, as under c in French, in Portuguese, and formerly in Spanish, to indicate that it is pronounced (s), under c and s in Turkish to indicate that they are pronounced, respectively, (ch) and (sh), or under t and s in Romanian to indicate that they are pronounced, respectively, (ts) and (sh).

  2. Orthography. this mark used as a diacritic of arbitrary value in transliteration of words from non-Roman into Roman alphabetic characters.

Origin of cedilla

1
1590–1600; <Spanish variant spelling of zedilla little z, equivalent to zed(a) zed + -illa diminutive suffix; the mark was so called from its original form

Words Nearby cedilla

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British Dictionary definitions for cedilla

cedilla

/ (sɪˈdɪlə) /


noun
  1. a character ( ¸ ) placed underneath a c before a, o, or u, esp in French, Portuguese, or Catalan, denoting that it is to be pronounced (s), not (k). The same character is used in the scripts of other languages, as in Turkish under s

Origin of cedilla

1
C16: from Spanish: little z, from ceda zed, from Late Latin zeta; a small z was originally written after c in Spanish, to indicate a sibilant

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