Dictionary

cedilla en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• sə-dĭʹlə
• (Southern-England) audio
• /səˈdɪlə/

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish cedilla (literally “little zed”), c. 1600. In Spanish cedilla referred to the letter ⟨Ç⟩, which had evolved from ⟨Ꝣ⟩, a Visigothic form of the letter Z (called a Z with copete); hence the name. The lower part of ⟨Ç⟩ (which came to be reinterpreted as a diacritical mark under a C) is the remnant of the original Z, after it gradually reduced in size; whereas the upper part was originally just an ornamentation over the Z (which increased in size until it resembled letter C, and finally came to be identified with this letter).

Meanings

1. A diacritical mark ⟨¸⟩ placed beneath a letter to modify its pronunciation, used in the orthographies of many languages, such as under c in Catalan, French and Portuguese to indicate /s/ rather than /k/ (e.g. Catalan força, French menaçant, Portuguese almoço) and in other languages to modify the pronunciation of the letter c (e.g. from /d͡ʒ/ to /t͡ʃ/ in Turkish) or of other letters.
   • California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸). 2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 04 Apr 2025:
2. (broadly) Synonym of cauda
   • Teresa Webber and Malcolm Parkes have both remarked on its use by the Canterbury scribe Eadmer in the twelfth century, who went so far as to distinguish cedillae indicating oe from cedillae indicating ae. 2003, Carrie E. Beneš, “The Appearance and Spread of the E-Cedilla in Latin Bookhands”, in Manuscripta, volumes 43–44, page 2:
   • The following ligatures are the principal ones to be encountred in early Caroligian script: (a) ae, consisting of Carolingian e to which a Cursive a in the shape of u or cc or a simple hook is suspended; the ‘cedilla’ in this e caudata would soon be no longer understood as representing the letter a and would take various forms, before disappearing in the course of the twelfth century; [...]. 2003, Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, page 52:
   • The scribal discipline indicated by this sort of consistency extends to such details as the employment of different forms of cedilla appended to the letter e to distinguish between diphthong ae and diphthong oe. 1992, Margaret Gibson, T.A Heslop, Richard Pfaff, The Eadwine Psalter : text, image and monastic culture in twelfth-century Canterbury, Pennsylvania State University Press, page 15:

Forms

Deriveds

cedillated

Relateds

ogonek · ç

Synonyms

cédille · cauda · cedille

Translations (38)

nl cedille (diacritical mark) · pl cedylla (diacritical mark) · fa-ira سِدیل (diacritical mark) · de Cedille (diacritical mark) · az sedil (diacritical mark) · ar سِدِيلَا (diacritical mark) · ko 세디유 (diacritical mark) · hu cédille (diacritical mark) · eo cedilo (diacritical mark) · fr cédille (diacritical mark) · es cedilla (diacritical mark) · id cedilla (diacritical mark) · oc cedilha (diacritical mark) · cs cedilla (diacritical mark) · hu cedilla (diacritical mark) · eo subhoko (diacritical mark) · uk седи́ль (diacritical mark) · ja セディーユ (diacritical mark) · io cedilio (diacritical mark) · gv straihleen (diacritical mark) · ga straithín (diacritical mark) · hu bal farok (diacritical mark) · gv seddag (diacritical mark) · ca trencat (diacritical mark) · tr sedil (diacritical mark) · eo zoeto (diacritical mark) · be цэды́ллю (diacritical mark) · ro sedilă (diacritical mark) · hu akasztó (diacritical mark) · fi sedilji (diacritical mark) · it cediglia (diacritical mark) · sv cedilj (diacritical mark) · cmn 軟音符 /软音符 (diacritical mark) · ru седи́ль (diacritical mark) · pt cedilha (diacritical mark) · tr çengel işareti (diacritical mark) · hu farkinca (diacritical mark) · uz sedil (diacritical mark)