Definition of diaeresis in English:
diaeresis
(US dieresis)
noun dʌɪˈɪərɪsɪsdʌɪˈɛrɪsɪsdaɪˈɛrəsəs
1A mark (¨) placed over a vowel to indicate that it is sounded separately, as in naïve, Brontë.
分音符,隔音符(符号[¨],置于元音上方,表示该元音单独发音,如在 naïve,Brontë 中)
Example sentencesExamples
- The New Yorker is probably the last popular magazine in the English-speaking world where the editors insist on the diaeresis (not umlaut) in ‘cöoperate’.
- No diacritic marks are normally used for native English words, unless the apostrophe and the diaeresis sign are counted as such.
- As several commenters have pointed out, both publications insist on using the diaeresis mark (as in naïve, for example) even though it hasn't been in common usage for several decades at least.
- This misspelling had been tackled earlier by Chast, who pointed out that Laennec, a native of Brittany, did not write his name with a diaeresis in his publications.
- 1.1mass noun The division of a sound into two syllables, especially by sounding a diphthong as two vowels.
二合元音分立(将一个音分成两个音节,尤指将一二合元音分别发成两个元音)
2Prosody
A natural rhythmic break in a line of verse where the end of a metrical foot coincides with the end of a phrase.
〔诗韵〕(诗行中音步尾部和词组的最后音节相符时的)小休止
Origin
Late 16th century (denoting the division of one syllable into two): via Latin from Greek diairesis 'separation', from diairein 'take apart', from dia 'apart' + hairein 'take'.