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{{diacritical marks|á|caption=Letter a with diacritic acute}}
A '''diacritic''' – also '''diacritical mark''', '''diacritical point''', '''diacritical sign''', '''oselisc''' or '''accent''' – is a [[glyph]] added to a [[letter (alphabet)|letter]], or basic glyph. The term derives from the [[Ancient Greek]] {{wikt-lang|grc|διακριτικός}} (''diakritikós'', "distinguishing"), from {{lang|grc|διακρίνω}} (''diakrī́nō'', "to distinguish"). ''Diacritic'' is primarily an [[adjective]], though sometimes used as a [[noun]], whereas ''diacritical'' is only ever an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the [[acute accent|acute]] ( ´ ) and [[grave accent|grave]] ( ` ), are often called ''accents''. Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.
The main use of diacritical marks in the [[Latin script]] is to change the sound-values of the letters to which they are added. Examples are the [[Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaereses]] in the borrowed French words ''naïve'' and ''Noël'', which show that the vowel with the diaeresis mark is pronounced separately from the preceding [[vowel]]; the acute and grave accents, which can indicate that a final vowel is to be pronounced, as in ''[[saké]]'' and poetic ''breathèd''; and the [[cedilla]] under the "c" in the borrowed French word ''façade'', which shows it is pronounced {{IPAslink|s}} rather than {{IPAslink|k}}. In other [[Latin-script alphabet]]s, they may distinguish between [[homonym]]s, such as the [[French language|French]] ''là'' ("there") versus ''la'' ("the") that are both pronounced {{IPA|/la/}}. In [[Gaelic type]], a dot over a consonant indicates [[lenition]] of the consonant in question.
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