cedilla

Borrowed from Spanish cedilla (literally “little zed”), c. 1600. In Spanish cedilla referred to the letter ⟨Ç⟩, which had evolved from ⟨Ꝣ⟩, a Visigothic form of the letter Z (called a Z with copete); hence the name. The lower part of ⟨Ç⟩ (which came to be reinterpreted as a diacritical mark under a C) is the remnant of the original Z, after it gradually reduced in size; whereas the upper part was originally just an ornamentation over the Z (which increased in size until it resembled letter C, and finally came to be identified with this letter).

• IPA^(key): /səˈdɪlə/, enPR: sə-dĭʹlə

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪlə

cedilla (plural cedillas)

1. (orthography) In the spelling of Catalan, French, Portuguese and some other languages, a mark ⟨¸⟩ sometimes placed under the letter c to indicate that it is pronounced /s/ rather than /k/, as in Catalan força, French menaçant, and Portuguese almoço, and also used in various other languages to change the sounds of other letters.

   Synonyms: (dated) cedille, cédille

   • 2015 April 11, Tovin Lapan, “California birth certificates and accents: O’Connor alright, Ramón and José is not”, in The Guardian‎^[1], archived from the original on 4 April 2025:

     California, like several other states, prohibits the use of diacritical marks or accents on official documents. That means no tilde (~), no accent grave (`), no umlaut (¨) and certainly no cedilla (¸).

Sometimes retained in words which have been adopted into English, specifically from French, such as facade/façade.

• ç
• ogonek

• cleidal

Unadapted borrowing from Spanish cedilla.

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃe.dɪl.la/
• Rhymes: -la
• Hyphenation: ce‧dil‧la

cedilla (plural cedilla-cedilla)

1. (orthography) cedilla

• “cedilla”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

From Old Spanish ceda (“letter Z”) +‎ -illa (diminutive suffix); cognate with modern Spanish zeta.

• Syllabification: ce‧di‧lla

cedilla f (plural cedillas)

1. name of the letter ç
2. (orthography) cedilla

• “cedilla”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024