υποδιαστολή

Greek

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ὑποδιαστολή (hupodiastolḗ), from the combining form of ὑπό (hupó, “under, lower”) + διαστολή (diastolḗ, “separation, distinction”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ipoðiastoˈli/
• Hyphenation: υ‧πο‧δι‧α‧στο‧λή

Noun

υποδιαστολή • (ypodiastolí) n (plural υποδιαστολές)

1. (typography, grammar, historical) The hypodiastole, a mark used in scripta continua Classical and Byzantine Greek to note that a series of letters should be read as two words rather than all together, now identical to the comma.
2. (typography, mathematics) The Greek decimal point, identical to the comma.
3. (typography, grammar, uncommon) Synonym of κόμμα (kómma) in its other uses.

Usage notes

The separately-encoded hypodiastole in Unicode is only intended for historical documents. The few remaining instances of hypodiastoles in modern Greek—such as ό,τι—formally use the comma instead and informally see the mark omitted. The Greek term now generally denotes the comma in its role as the decimal point.

Declension

See also

see also: Greek Punctuation and Greek alphabet (Diacritics)

Further reading

• Hypodiastole on the Greek Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^el