cedilla

American  

[si-dil-uh] / sɪˈdɪl ə /

noun

1. Phonetics, Orthography. a diacritic (¸) placed under a consonant letter, as under c in French, in Portuguese, and formerly in Spanish, to indicate that it is pronounced (s), under c and s in Turkish to indicate that they are pronounced, respectively, (ch) and (sh), or under t and s in Romanian to indicate that they are pronounced, respectively, (ts) and (sh).

2. Orthography. this mark used as a diacritic of arbitrary value in transliteration of words from non-Roman into Roman alphabetic characters.

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cedilla British  

/ sɪˈdɪlə /

noun

1. a character ( ¸ ) placed underneath a c before a, o, or u, esp in French, Portuguese, or Catalan, denoting that it is to be pronounced (s), not (k). The same character is used in the scripts of other languages, as in Turkish under s

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Etymology

Origin of cedilla

1590–1600; < Spanish variant spelling of zedilla little z, equivalent to zed ( a ) zed + -illa diminutive suffix; the mark was so called from its original form