What Is the Macron? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
A flat bar above a vowel, used for long vowels in Latvian, Lithuanian, Māori, Hawaiian and Latin textbooks, and for the first tone in Pinyin.
Letters with the macron: ū ā ē ī ō ȳ ḕ ḗ ḡ ṑ ṓ ṻ
Combining character: U+0304
What the macron does
A flat bar above a vowel, used for long vowels in Latvian, Lithuanian, Māori, Hawaiian and Latin textbooks, and for the first tone in Pinyin. Unicode encodes 24 precomposed letters with this mark as their first diacritic, and the combining form U+0304 can add it to any other letter.
Languages that use it
Hawaiian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin Pinyin, Māori.
All lowercase letters with the macron
Codes and shortcuts
| Letter | Name | Unicode | Alt code | Mac |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ū | u with macron | U+016B | — | — |
| ā | a with macron | U+0101 | — | — |
| ē | e with macron | U+0113 | — | — |
| ī | i with macron | U+012B | — | — |
| ō | o with macron | U+014D | — | — |
| ȳ | y with macron | U+0233 | — | — |
| ḕ | e with macron and grave | U+1E15 | — | — |
| ḗ | e with macron and acute | U+1E17 | — | — |
| ḡ | g with macron | U+1E21 | — | — |
| ṑ | o with macron and grave | U+1E51 | — | — |
| ṓ | o with macron and acute | U+1E53 | — | — |
| ṻ | u with macron and umlaut | U+1E7B | — | — |
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+0304 in Word and press Alt+X. On a Mac, use Unicode Hex Input: type the letter, then hold Option and type 0304. On a Chromebook, type the letter, then Ctrl+Shift+U, 0304, Space.
Copy every letter with the macron
Related guides
- What Is the Acute accent? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
- What Is the Grave accent? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
- What Is the Circumflex? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
- What Is the Umlaut / diaeresis? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It
- What Is the Tilde? Meaning, Letters and How to Type It