What ᷒ means
It preserves an abbreviated word in the transcription.
Latin examples include man᷒, read as manus (“hand”), and p᷒t, read as post (“after”); the mark also occurs in praepositus. Depending on the word and the transcription’s convention—the editor’s rule for preserving abbreviations—it supplies “us” or “os.” It has no single reading on its own.
This sign belongs to a medieval family of marks used to shorten manuscript writing. Scholars later carried such abbreviation marks into specialist transcriptions, preserving the shortened form instead of silently expanding it.
Why does ᷒ look wrong?
A font must know both the mark and where to place it.
The character is entered after its base letter, although it is drawn above it. A font needs the mark itself and positioning support; without them, it can disappear or sit off-center.
For a diplomatic transcription—a record that stays close to the manuscript’s written forms—use ᷒ only where the manuscript or edition’s rules call for it. Replacing it with an ordinary accent changes the recorded abbreviation.
A specialist mark used to preserve abbreviations in historical manuscript transcription.
Do not read it as a plain accent; restore its missing letters from the word.
Part of the collection
Related characters
3
Questions people ask
1Why is ᷒ missing?
It may be a font issue: the font needs the glyph and positioning rules for this combining mark. Without either, ᷒ can disappear or land badly even though the character is in the text.
More like this
9
How to type or find ᷒
- Search it as
- medieval us abbreviation · Latin scribal abbreviation · medieval abbreviation mark · us abbreviation mark · medieval Latin abbreviation · manus abbreviation · Latin abbreviation symbol
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
᷒\1DD2Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.