macron

See also: macrón, mácron, Macron, and macaron

English

WOTD – 8 May 2017

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón), neuter form of μακρός (makrós, long) (English macro-).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: măkʹrŏn, mākʹrŏn, IPA(key): /ˈmækɹɒn/, /ˈmeɪkɹɒn/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈmeɪkɹɑn/, /ˈmækɹɑn/
  • Hyphenation: ma‧cron

Noun

Examples
  • Latin pōpulus (poplar tree, indicates vowel length)
  • Mandarin chūzūchē (taxi, indicates first tone)
  • Translingual (antiproton, indicates antimatter equivalent)

macron (plural macrons or (rare) macra)

  1. (orthography) A short, straight, horizontal diacritical mark (◌̄) placed over a letter, usually to indicate that the pronunciation of a vowel is long. [from 19th c.]
    Antonyms: breve, micron
    Hypernym: bar
    Coordinate terms: solidus, vinculum, long-vowel mark, overline, overbar, overscore, ◌̅
    • 1889, Rebecca S[mith] Pollard, A Complete Manual: Pollard’s Synthetic Method of Reading and Spelling. Designed to Accompany Synthetic Readers and Spellers, New York, N.Y.: American Book Company, →OCLC, page 75:
      We say such words belong to a Long family, because of the long macron hat the vowels wear. Like the other twin o's, one hat is enough for both, for these twins are always found together.
    • 1974, Floyd L. Moreland, Rita M. Fleischer, Latin: An Intensive Course, University of California Press, page 13:
      A macron is a mark placed above a long vowel to mark its quantity.
    • 1986, Peter V. Jones, Keith C. Sidwell, “Introduction”, in Reading Latin, volumes 1 (Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 2, general note 1:
      All vowels are pronounced short unless marked with a ¯ (macron) over them. So observe different vowel length of ‘i ’ in, e.g., fīlia, etc. It may be helpful, but is not essential, to mark macra in your exercises.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

Misspellings

a misspelling of Macaron.

Anagrams

Dutch

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón), neuter form of μακρός (makrós, long).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈmaː.krɔn/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

macron m (plural macrons, diminutive macrontje n)

  1. (orthography) macron

Hypernyms

  • diakriet

French

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón), neuter form of μακρός (makrós, long).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ma.kʁɔ̃/
  • Audio (Paris):(file)

Noun

macron m (plural macrons)

  1. macron

Italian

Etymology

From Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón), neuter form of μακρός (makrós, long).

Noun

macron m (invariable)

  1. macron