A macron, from the Greek μακρόv (makrón), meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel (and, more rarely, under or above a consonant). It was originally used to mark a long syllable in Græco-Roman metrics, but now also indicates that the vowel is long. (This is the opposite of a breve ˘, used to indicate originally a short syllable and now also a short vowel.) Distinctions between long and short vowels are often phonemic. In the International Phonetic Alphabet the macron is used to indicate mid tone; the sign for a long vowel is a modified triangular colon.
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