Dotted circle

◌
◌
dotted circle
	U+25CC ◌ DOTTED CIRCLE

In Unicode, the dotted circle (◌) is a non-significant typographic character used to illustrate the effect of a combining mark, such as a diacritic mark.^[1] It can also be used to indicate a spot where a character ought to be, but it is seldom used for anything else.

Illustration

A Unicode combining mark combines with a preceding character. When used as stand-alone, it would combine unintentionally with a preceding character (possibly a space):

Diacritic ̒ used alone between regular spaces
Diacritic ◌̒ used after a character

Using the generic dotted circle character also shows the relative positioning of the diacritic.

References

^ "Chapter 17. About the Code Charts" (PDF). The Unicode Standard. Version 6.2. Unicode, Inc. 2012-09-26. p. 273. Retrieved 2015-03-28. Combining characters are shown with a dotted circle. […] the relative position of the dotted circle indicates an […] approximate location of the base character in relation to the combining mark. […]

v t e Diacritics
In Latin, Cyrillic and Greek	◌́ ◌̋ acute, double acute ◌᷄ apex ◌̆ ◌̑ breve, inverted breve ◌̌ caron, háček ◌̧ cedilla ◌̂ circumflex ◌̈ diaeresis, umlaut, other ◌̇ ◌̣ dot ◌̀ ◌̏ grave, double grave ◌̉ hook above ◌̡ ◌̢ palatal hook, retroflex hook ◌̛ horn ◌ͅ iota subscript ◌̄ macron ◌̨ ogonek, nosinė ◌̊ ◌̥ overring, underring ◌͂ perispomene ◌͗ sicilicus ◌̃ tilde ◌῾ ◌᾿ rough breathing, smooth breathing
In Early Cyrillic	◌҄ kamora ◌҇ pokrytie ◌҃ titlo
In Indic	ं ং ଂ ം anusvara ऽ ঽ ଽ ఽ ഽ ྅ avagraha ँ ఁ ྃ chandrabindu ़ nuqta ् ് ్ ್ ් ် virama ः ঃ ଃ ஃ visarga
In other scripts	Arabic diacritics Greek diacritics Gurmukhī diacritics Hebrew diacritics diacritics in IPA Japanese kana diacritics ◌゙ ◌゚ dakuten, handakuten Khmer diacritics Syriac diacritics Thai diacritics
Marks used as diacritics	◌’ apostrophe ◌̸ bar ◌: colon ◌, comma ◌. full stop/period ◌˗ hyphen ◌′ prime
Non-diacritic uses	^ caret (computing) ° degree symbol ~ tilde § Mathematics
In Unicode	◌ dotted circle (placeholder glyph character) combining character § Unicode ranges
See also: English terms with diacritical marks Metal umlaut Punctuation marks Category: Diacritics

Illustration

References

See also