Dead key

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A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter.^[1] The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after. Thus, a dedicated key is not needed for each possible combination of a diacritic and a letter, but rather only one dead key for each diacritic is needed, in addition to the normal base letter keys.

For example, if a keyboard mapping (such as US international) has a dead key for the circumflex, ^, the character â can be generated by first pressing ^ and then a.^[2]

Usually, the diacritic itself can be generated as a free-standing character by pressing the dead key followed by space; so a caret (free-standing circumflex) can be typed by pressing ^ and then Space.