Grave accent

Grave accent (pronounced [gra:v] (grahv) or [greIv]) is a diacritic mark used in written French, Catalan, Italian and other languages.

Examples: à è ì ò ù

In French the grave accent has two uses. On the letter e it marks the distinct quality of the vowel: è [E], and e [@]. It is also used as a grammatical mark, serving to distinguish between the preposition à (to) and the verb a (past tense of avoir); and où (where) and ou (or).

In Catalan grave accent is used to mark both the stress and the distinct quality of certain stressed vowels, such as è [E] versus é [e], or such as ò [O] versus ó [o].

In Italian it marks final stress, as in virtù 'virtue', città 'city'.

See also:

• Acute accent
• Diacritic marks