macron

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek μακρόν (makrón), the neuter of μακρός (makrós, “long”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} which Etymonline says came into English in a Latinized form.^[9] The OED notes that ancient Greek did not use makrón for this mark, although Hellenistic Greek, in Dionysius Thrax, used μακρά (makrá) (short for a phrase with προσῳδία (prosōidía)) in this sense.^[2] The Greek adjective is from Proto-Indo-European *māk- (“long, thin”).^[5][9] The Greek adjective is also the source of macro-,^[2][6][7] and the same root is the source of meager.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A short horizontal line over a vowel to show that it is long: Etymonline dates the word to 1827.^[9] The OED's first quotation is from a grammar by G. Brown, 1851, and Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give the same year.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its single technical meaning, a horizontal line placed over a vowel to mark length or stress.^[2][8] Besides the length of vowels, it is used in prosody to mark a long or stressed syllable in a foot of verse,^[4][10] and in the spelling of some languages and in phonetic respellings.^[10]

Timeline

• 1827 – a short horizontal line over a vowel to indicate its length.^[9] The OED, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged date the word to 1851.^[2][3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A diacritical mark (¯) placed over a vowel to show that it is long, as in some dictionaries and in the spelling of some languages.^[4][10][2]
2. In prosody, a mark placed over a syllable to show that it is long or stressed in a foot of verse.^[4][10]

Related words

• macro-
• meager

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins