Circumflexion

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The use of a diacritical mark shaped like a caret (^) placed over a letter to show a change in pronunciation or pitch
2. A typographical sign above a letter that signals a particular sound or intonation pattern
3. A mark positioned atop a character to denote a modification in how it should be pronounced or spoken

Etymology: The accent's name describes a sound, not a shape. Ancient Greek grammarians called the mark "perispomene," meaning "drawn around," because they heard a syllable carrying it as a voice that rose and then fell within one vowel. Latin scholars translated this as "circumflexus," the past participle of "circumflectere," "to bend around," from "circum" ("around") and "flectere" ("to bend"). The English "circumflex" comes from that Latin form, and it has kept the sense of bending around even though the mark on the page is a caret, a shape the Greek sign did not really share. "Circumflexion" is a rarer English noun built from the same root with the suffix "-ion," which turns a verb-like idea into a noun for an action or process. Its basic sense is the act of bending around, and its use for the accent mark is a later extension of the word for the mark. Specific dates for when it first appeared in print are uncertain, so I have not given one.