Halant

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A diacritic used in most writing systems of the Indian subcontinent to signify the lack of an inherent vowel.

    "a Devanagari example: क (ka) + ् = क् (k)"

  2. 2
    A sign which serves the same purpose in any writing system.
  3. 3
    A character which binds consonants into a conjunct or some other form of visual combination which is prototypically a visual indication that the first consonant does not have an implicit vowel

Synonyms

All synonyms
sukunviramavirama

Example

More examples

"a Devanagari example: क (ka) + ् = क् (k)"

Etymology

Borrowed from Hindi हलंत (halant). The computing sense arises from the diacritic sense through the use in ISCII of the same computer character to act, depending on context and font capabilities, as either a visual diacritic or as a control character modifying a pair of consonants.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.