cedilla means in the spelling of Catalan, French, Portuguese and some other languages, a mark ⟨¸⟩ sometimes placed under the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/, as in Catalan força, French menaçant, and Portuguese almoço, and also used in various other languages to change the sounds of other letters.
cedilla is pronounced /səˈdɪlə/.
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish cedilla (literally “little zed”), c. 1600. In Spanish cedilla referred to the letter ⟨Ç⟩, which had evolved from ⟨Ꝣ⟩, a Visigothic form of the letter Z (called a Z with copete); hence the name. The lower part of ⟨Ç⟩ (which came to be reinterpreted as a diacritical mark under a C) is the remnant of the original Z, after it gradually reduced in size; whereas the upper part was originally just an ornamentation over the Z (which increased in size until it resembled letter C, and finally came to be identified with this letter).
noun
- In the spelling of Catalan, French, Portuguese and some other languages, a mark ⟨¸⟩ sometimes placed under the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/, as in Catalan força, French menaçant, and Portuguese almoço, and also used in various other languages to change the sounds of other letters.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- cédille 69% match — A cedilla. vs cedilla →
- cee 58% match — The name of the Latin script letter C/c. vs cedilla →
- tse 56% match — The Cyrillic letter Ц, ц. vs cedilla →
- breve 56% match — A semicircular diacritical mark (˘) placed above a vowel, commonly used to mark its quantity as short. vs cedilla →
- titlo 52% match — The character ◌҃, which serves as a diacritical mark in Old Cyrillic. vs cedilla →
- catalanize 50% match — To render someone or something more typical to Catalan pronunciation, spelling, culture, style, etc. vs cedilla →
- čiriklo 50% match — A háček (marking palatalisation when written atop a consonant, iotation when written atop a vowel). vs cedilla →
- circumflex 50% match — A diacritical mark (ˆ) placed over a vowel in the orthography or transliteration of many languages to change its pronunciation; while in some other languages over a consonant. vs cedilla →