Combining eth

Enter the base letter first and this mark second.

In Unicode text, a combining mark follows the character it modifies. A font uses that preceding letter to position the raised eth; after the wrong letter, it attaches in the wrong place, and alone it has no base. Fonts with limited support may omit it or place it incorrectly.

What does superscript eth mean?

It preserves raised manuscript notation, sometimes used for abbreviation.

Scribes used raised letters and other marks to shorten words and save writing space. In Nordic manuscripts, abbreviation practices drew on English and Continental models, then developed local forms. A diplomatic transcription aims to preserve what the manuscript shows; a normalized edition may expand or remove this mark. The mark alone does not identify exactly which letters an editor should restore.

The Unicode proposal reproduces a scholarly sample from 1846 and an Old Norse example credited to a 1987 source. These later examples document transmission and editorial use, not the mark's creation.

Which mark is the standalone eth?

The standalone eth is ð, written on the baseline.

This character is a combining mark that sits above a preceding letter; ð is the ordinary letter eth. In an edition, retaining the raised form preserves a manuscript detail that a normalized text may expand.