Meaning of Acute | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A person who has the acute form of a disorder, such as schizophrenia.
   informal
2. An accent or tone higher than others.
   historical
3. An acute accent (´).

Equivalents

Examples

“Anne Marie had been assigned a ‘constant supervision’ status. […] Always avoiding the unrest of the television lounge, she would sometimes join some of the older ‘acutes’ who sat isolated in metal chairs at the end of the hallway and gaze out of the window with them.”

“[I]t would be strange if we wer to recite Homer, raising our voices on the acutes, lowering them on the graves, and managing the circumflexes as well as we could, yet to recite Virgil without any of these regular elevations, depressions, and circumbendibus.”

“There would be no sense in our assuming that even an independent circumflex after an acute might be raised in pitch for the sake of clearer distinction from that acute; for it is sufficiently distinguished by its sliding tone; and, if it had any right to be further distinguished, an acute following an acute would have much more right; while, nevertheless, any number of acutes are allowed to succeed one another, without modification of their natural character.”

“The word ‘cafe’ often has an acute over the ‘e’.”

“The number of Notes in this Table, without either acute or grave marks (´ or `), is 75. Of those bearing one acute mark (´) it is 74, of those with two acutes (´´) 70, with three acutes (´´´ or ´³) 51, […]”

“The five vowels marked with acutes over them, it is probable, were first contrived to assist the ignorant monks in reading the church service, that by this means they might arrive to a proper and settled pronunciation in the discharge of their sacerdotal duties; […]”

CEFR level