maddah

Meaning

Noun

• Arabic diacritic similar in appearance to a tilde. Over an alif (آ "alif maddah"), it indicates glottal stop, /ʔ/, followed by a long /aː/. The diacritic is not used separately, only over alif. Alif maddah can appear in the beginning: آسِف or in the middle of a word: قُرْآن.
• In the Qur'an, it indicates an extra long vowel and can appear over any long vowel.
• In Persian the letter is used only in the beginning of a word with a long /aː/: آمدن.

Origin

• From Arabic مَدَّة.