# É
**É** (minuscule: **é**), known as E-acute, is a Latin-script character composed of the letter E and an acute accent. In Unicode it is encoded as U+00C9 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE and U+00E9 LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE, and the small letter has the canonical decomposition into the base letter e followed by U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT.[1](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf) The character's function varies by language: it marks a closed vowel quality in French and Italian, a stressed syllable in Spanish, an open vowel in Portuguese, and vowel length in Czech and Irish.[2](https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/en/aides/pronunciation-e-and-e-acute-or-grave-which-accent-should-you-use) • [3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Code points | U+00C9 É (capital), U+00E9 é (small), in the Latin-1 Supplement block[1](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf) |
| Canonical decomposition | é = 0065 e + 0301 ◌́ COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT[1](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf) |
| French value | Closed, tense sound /e/, in contrast with grave è /ɛ/; the acute appears only on e in French[2](https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/en/aides/pronunciation-e-and-e-acute-or-grave-which-accent-should-you-use) • [4](https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/acute-accent/) |
| Italian value | Closed /e/ on final-stressed words such as perché, né, sé; the grave è marks the open /ɛ/[5](https://elon.io/grammar/italian/pronunciation/accent-marks) |
| Portuguese value | Stressed open vowel /ɛ/, as in café[3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/) |
| Spanish value | Marks the stressed syllable, as in canción[3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/) |
| Encoding note | Text may hold either the precomposed character or the decomposed sequence; normalization forms pick one consistently[6](https://unicode.org/faq/normalization.html) |
## Unicode encoding and normalization
Unicode encodes some text elements both as precomposed forms and as combining character sequences, and the precomposed form carries a canonical decomposition that makes the two representations canonically equivalent. For é, the precomposed U+00E9 and the sequence e plus U+0301 are two encodings of the same abstract character, and not all processes are required to respect canonical equivalence; binary string comparison can distinguish canonically equivalent sequences.[6](https://unicode.org/faq/normalization.html) • [12](https://unicode.org/reports/tr15/) Normalizing a string means consistently picking one of these equivalent encodings, either all composed or all decomposed; normalization form C composes the pair into the single precomposed character, while form D leaves it decomposed.[6](https://unicode.org/faq/normalization.html)
Systems that cannot handle nonspacing marks can normalize text to precomposed characters, an option that accommodates most modern Latin-based languages.[7](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.1.0/ch05.pdf)
The acute accent itself is not encoded by function and is not specific to any language. In some languages it marks a distinct letter with a distinct pronunciation, in others a stress, a quantity, or a tone, and the same combining character U+0301 serves all of these uses unless a precomposed character is available.[8](https://www.unicode.org/faq/char_combmark.html)
## French
In French, é is the only vowel letter that takes the acute accent, called l'accent aigu. The accent changes the vowel's pronunciation to the closed sound [e], roughly like the vowel of English "ay", in words such as été (summer), école (school), and raffiné (refined).[4](https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/acute-accent/) French accents indicate the quality of the sound rather than intensity: acute é is a closed, tense /e/, while grave è is an open, relaxed /ɛ/.[2](https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/en/aides/pronunciation-e-and-e-acute-or-grave-which-accent-should-you-use)
The choice between é and è follows a rhythmic logic. The closed /e/ is preferred when the syllable ends in that vowel, as in préféré, while è appears when a following syllable contains a silent e that may be dropped, as in préfère, leaving a pronounced consonant to close the syllable.[2](https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/en/aides/pronunciation-e-and-e-acute-or-grave-which-accent-should-you-use) The same alternation runs through word families: collège takes a grave accent because the following syllable contains a mute e, while collégial takes an acute because the following syllable has a pronounced vowel.[9](https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/23695/lorthographe/accents-trema-et-cedille/accent-aigu-et-accent-grave/alternance-entre-e-et-e-dans-les-mots-de-meme-famille)
É also has grammatical and etymological roles. The past participle of all -er verbs ends in é, as in j'ai mangé, and word-initial é usually marks that the [Old French](https://www.edgepedia.org/old-french) or Latin ancestor began with es or s, as in établir from Latin stabilire.[4](https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/acute-accent/) The 1990 spelling rectifications proposed replacing é with è in some contexts to match pronunciation, for example évènement alongside the traditional événement.[10](https://ameliorer-ses-ecrits.univ-cotedazur.fr/wp-content/ressources/ORTHOLEXI.publi/auroraW/co/01_accentsSurLeE.html)
## Italian and other languages
Italian uses the acute accent on é for the closed vowel /e/ and the grave on è for the open /ɛ/, and the accent also marks stress on final syllables. Final-stressed words in -ché take the acute, including perché, poiché, affinché, and finché, along with a few standalone words such as né, sé, and ventitré; nearly all other final-stressed words take the grave.[5](https://elon.io/grammar/italian/pronunciation/accent-marks)
In Portuguese, é represents the stressed open phoneme /ɛ/, as in café, contrasting with the closed /e/ written without an accent in other positions.[3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/) In Spanish, the acute accent on any vowel, including é, marks the stressed syllable when the stress is unexpected, as in canción.[3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/) In Czech and Hungarian the acute marks vowel length, and in Irish the síneadh fada lengthens the vowel in á, é, í, ó, and ú.[3](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/)
## Related characters
The Latin-1 Supplement block contains the full set of e with single diacritics: è (U+00E8), é (U+00E9), ê (U+00EA), and ë (U+00EB), each with a corresponding capital letter.[1](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf) Combinations of e with two diacritics are encoded further afield, such as Ế (U+1EBE, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX AND ACUTE), used in Vietnamese, which decomposes to Ê plus the combining acute.[11](https://www.unicode.org/Public/UCD/latest/charts/nameslist/1e00/)
## References
1. [The Unicode Standard, Version 17.0, Latin-1 Supplement code chart](https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdf)
2. [Pronunciation: 'é' and 'è': acute or grave, which accent should you use? TV5MONDE](https://apprendre.tv5monde.com/en/aides/pronunciation-e-and-e-acute-or-grave-which-accent-should-you-use)
3. [E with Acute Accent (É é): Copy, Alt Code & Shortcuts, Accent Letters](https://accentletters.wiki/e-with-accent/acute/)
4. [French É – Acute Accent (Accent aigu), Lawless French](https://www.lawlessfrench.com/pronunciation/acute-accent/)
5. [Accent Marks: Grave and Acute, Italian Grammar, Elon.io](https://elon.io/grammar/italian/pronunciation/accent-marks)
6. [FAQ – Normalization, Unicode Consortium](https://unicode.org/faq/normalization.html)
7. [The Unicode Standard, Version 12.0, Chapter 5](https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode12.1.0/ch05.pdf)
8. [FAQ – Characters and Combining Marks, Unicode Consortium](https://www.unicode.org/faq/char_combmark.html)
9. [Alternance entre é et è dans les mots de même famille, Banque de dépannage linguistique, OQLF](https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/23695/lorthographe/accents-trema-et-cedille/accent-aigu-et-accent-grave/alternance-entre-e-et-e-dans-les-mots-de-meme-famille)
10. [Accents sur le E : accent grave et accent aigu, ORTHOLEXI, Université Côte d'Azur](https://ameliorer-ses-ecrits.univ-cotedazur.fr/wp-content/ressources/ORTHOLEXI.publi/auroraW/co/01_accentsSurLeE.html)
11. [Latin Extended Additional names list, Unicode 18.0.0](https://www.unicode.org/Public/UCD/latest/charts/nameslist/1e00/)
12. [UAX #15: Unicode Normalization Forms](https://unicode.org/reports/tr15/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Writing and notation systems › Latin script*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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