diaeresis

Etymology

From Late Latin diaeresis, from Ancient Greek διαίρεσις (diaíresis, “division, split”), from διά (diá, “apart”) + αἱρέω (hairéō, “I take”).

noun

1. (orthography) A diacritic (◌̈) placed over a vowel letter (especially the second of two consecutive ones) indicating that it is sounded separately, usually forming a distinct syllable, as in the English words naïve, Noël and Brontë, the French haïr and the Dutch ruïne.
   Coordinate term: umlaut
2. (linguistics, prosody) Distraction; the separation of a vowel, often a diphthong, into two distinct syllables.
3. (prosody) A natural break in rhythm when a word ends at the end of a metrical foot, in a line of verse.
4. (linguistics, prosody) Hiatus; the occurrence of separate vowel sounds in adjacent syllables without an intervening consonant.