umlaut
Americannoun
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Phonetics, Orthography. a diacritic (¨) used over a vowel, as ä, ö, ü, to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic, especially as so used in German.
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Also called vowel mutation. Linguistics, Phonetics. (in Germanic languages) assimilation in which a vowel is influenced by a following vowel or semivowel.
verb (used with object)
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Linguistics, Phonetics. to modify by umlaut.
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Phonetics, Orthography. to write an umlaut over.
noun
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the mark (¨) placed over a vowel in some languages, such as German, indicating modification in the quality of the vowel Compare diaeresis
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(esp in Germanic languages) the change of a vowel within a word brought about by the assimilating influence of a vowel or semivowel in a preceding or following syllable
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of umlaut
1835–45; < German, equivalent to um- about, around + Laut sound
Explanation
If you've ever studied German, you've seen an umlaut. It's a mark that looks like two dots over a letter, and it signifies a shift in pronunciation. Properly speaking, only German and Hungarian words have these two dots over a vowel to indicate a change in sound (as in doppelgänger and über), but loosely, people sometimes refer to its twin, the dieresis (as in naïve) as an umlaut. The word is German and means "change of sound," from um, "about," and laut, "sound."
Vocabulary lists containing umlaut
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Trying to get my lips and tongue from the ge- to the umlaut, then back around to the -lichkeit was, frankly, too much.
From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2025
His English was poor, though he had just sacrificed an umlaut in his surname in deference to American spelling.
From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2023
“Just to make the point, most phones won’t let you put an umlaut over an n. Look: n. It’s impossible. Spın̈al Tap will have to remain for the pre-iPhone age.”
From The Guardian ● Apr. 9, 2022
"Across all categories we see the system becoming more mature and stable", said Hakan Ekman, one of the study's authors. umlaut conducted a similar ranking in 2020 in California.
From Reuters ● Jan. 31, 2022
The presence of a Hunnish umlaut over the u adds insult to injury!
From Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 by Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
But as he hurled his partner high above the ice, he was thrown off balance by grammar and umlauts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 17, 2026
It’s been a rough week for fans of legendary heavy metal groups with umlauts in their names.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023
The Reuters wire service was unable to operate in Germany until 1881 because umlauts couldn’t be transmitted in Morse code.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2018
Not the tune itself, so much—John Legend’s marble-mouthed way of making all vowels partial umlauts turned the anthem into an accidental art song.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 3, 2016
Written Astrolinguish was awash in diacritical marks, with lots of umlauts, accents, and tildes.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
