1. A stress on a syllable to aid in the pronunciation of words; stress, emphasis: "The word 'woman' has its accent on the first syllable."
2. Pronunciation, enunciation, or modulation of speech: "Kent speaks with a Spanish accent."
3. A hint, touch, detail; trimming: "The room was painted white with a few blue accents."
4. Etymology: from about 1538, "a particular mode of pronunciation"; from Middle French (about 1400-1600) accent, from Old French (about 900-1400) acent; which came from Latin accentus, "song added to speech"; from ad-, "to" + cantus, "a singing", past participle of canere, "to sing".

Loan-translation of Greek prosoidia, from pros-, "to" + oide, "song", which apparently described the pitch scheme in Greek verse.

The decorating sense of "something that emphasizes or highlights" is from 1972. The verb meaning "to pronounce with an accent or a stress" is first recorded in 1530.

A mark or symbol that is used over a letter to show that it is pronounced in a certain way: For example, the circumflex accent of "o" as in "order" is (?r'duhr) or "circumflex" is (sûr' kuhm fl?ks').

Here are some other circumflex accents with short vowels with a curved symbol above each one: ?, ?, ?, ?, ? and the long vowels are represented by a horizontal line above each one: ?, ?, ?, ?, ?.