What Is the Circumflex? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
A small caret (^) above a vowel. In French it often marks a vanished s (forêt from forest), in Portuguese a closed vowel, in Welsh a long vowel, and in Vietnamese a distinct vowel (â, ê, ô).
Letters with the circumflex: ô â ê î û ĉ ĝ ĥ ĵ ŝ ŵ ŷ ấ ầ
Combining character: U+0302
What the circumflex does
A small caret (^) above a vowel. In French it often marks a vanished s (forêt from forest), in Portuguese a closed vowel, in Welsh a long vowel, and in Vietnamese a distinct vowel (â, ê, ô). Unicode encodes 56 precomposed letters with this mark as their first diacritic, and the combining form U+0302 can add it to any other letter.
Languages that use it
Afrikaans, Esperanto, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Welsh.
All lowercase letters with the circumflex
Codes and shortcuts
How to type it on any letter
On Windows, hold Alt and type the code from the table, or type the letter followed by U+0302 in Word and press Alt+X. On a Mac, use Unicode Hex Input: type the letter, then hold Option and type 0302. On a Chromebook, type the letter, then Ctrl+Shift+U, 0302, Space.
Copy every letter with the circumflex