List of English words with diacritics

This is a list of loan words adopted into the English language that have letters with diacritical marks. Most of the words listed here have come to English from French. Others have come from Spanish, German and Czech. Proper nouns are not listed except when used as an eponym.

Some non-English words have become "naturalized" into the English language and the accents and other diacritics are generally no longer used (for example "à propos", which lost both the accent and space to become "apropos"). Many of the words below are also in the process of losing their accents but can be found in print in both their accented and unaccented versions. Other words are still most often found with their accents, often to help indicate pronunciation (e.g. frappé, naïve, soufflé), or to help distinquish them from an unaccented English word (e.g. exposé, résumé, rosé). Imported, accentless words can even have diacritics added to them, often to distinguish them from common English words or to assist in proper pronunciation; maté from Spanish mate and animé are examples of these. In some cases, the only correct English spelling (as given by the OED and other dictionaries) requires the diacritic (e.g., soupçon).

Technical terms or those associated with specific fields (especially cooking or musical terms) are less likely to lose their accents (such as soupçon and entrée). There are also those Spanish words with the letter "ñ", which have occasionally been naturalized by replacing the "ñ" with "ny" (e.g. cañon is now usually canyon, piñon is now usually pinyon), but other Spanish words have not undergone the same transformation, e.g. El Niño, mañana and piñata, instead the trend is to Anglicise them by changing "ñ" into "n" e.g. El Nino.

In German words the rounded front vowels ä,ö,ü may be written ae,oe,ue.

In some cases, the diacritic is not borrowed from any foreign language but is purely of English origin. This includes the "oö" in the now somewhat rare variant spellings of words such as "coöperation" (compare the original French coopération). However, in the latter case the diaeresis is nowadays usually either replaced by a hyphen or dropped altogether (e.g. co-operation or cooperation).

For some words listed below, usage of diacritics is rare (and those words are shown in black).

__NOTOC__

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Z Phrases

Index

A

à bas, à la, à la carte, à la mode, à gogo and àgo-go, abbé, adiós, Ancien Régime, ångström, animé (either the oleo-resin, or Japanese animation, which is usually spelled without the diacritic), añu, ào dái, apéritif, appliqué, après-ski, arête, attaché, auto-da-fé

B

belle époque, bête noire, bêtise, blasé, boîte, Bön, Boötes, boutonnière, bric-à-brac

C

café, canapé, cañon (rare or obsolete - now canyon), Champs-Élysées, château, chargé d'affaires, cause célèbre, chaînés, cinéma vérité, cliché, cloisonné, consommé, communiqué, confrère, continuüm (rare), coöperate -ive (rare), coöpt (rare), coördinate -or (rare), cortège, coup d'état, coup de grâce, crèche, coulée, crème, crème brûlée, crème caramel, crème de cacao, crème de menthe, crêpe, crêpe paper, crêpe suzette, Creüsa, croûton, crudités, Curaçao

D

daïs, dấu hỏi, débâcle, débutante, déclassé, décolletage, décolleté, décor, découpage, dégagé, déjà vu, démodé, dénouement, dérailleur, derrière, déshabillé, détente, diamanté, discothèque, divorcé(e), Doña, doppelgänger

H

habitué, háček

I

ingénue

J

jäger, jalapeño, jardinière

K

kroužek, kümmel, kåldolmar

L

lamé, ländler, langue d'oïl, La Niña, littérateur, lycée

M

macédoine, macramé, maître d'hôtel, malagueña, mañana, manège, manqué, matériel, matinée, mélange, mêlée (also melée), ménage à trois, mésalliance, métier, Métis, minaudière, Möbius strip, moiré, Mötley Crüe, Motörhead

N

naïf, naïve, naïveté, né, née, negligée, Neufchâtel cheese, Nez Percé, Noël, número uno

O

objet d'arts, objet trouvé, olé, ombré, omertà, oölogy (rare), opéra bouffe, opéra comique, opïum (rare), öre, øre, outré

P

papier-mâché, passé, pâte, pâté, phở, pièce de résistance, pied-à-terre, plissé, Piña Colada, piñata, piñon, piraña, piqué, più, plié, précis, pölsa, preëmpt -ive (rare), première, première danseuse, prêt-à-porter, protégé, protégée, purée

Q

Québécois

R

raison d'être, recherché, réclame, reënter (rare), résumé or resumé, residuüm (rare), retroussé, risqué, rôle, rivière, roman à clef, rosé, roué

S

sauté, séance, señor, señora, señorita, Sinn Féin, smörgåsbord, smörgåstårta, soigné, soirée, soufflé, soupçon, surströmming

T

tête-à-tête, touché, tourtière

U

über, Übermensch

V

ventre à terre, vicuña, vin rosé, vis à vis, voilà

Gourt Home::Gourt :: List of English words with diacritics

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

See also