A caron ( ˇ ) or háček (/ˈhɑːtʃɛk/; from Czech háček ), also known as a wedge, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, is a diacritic placed over certain letters to indicate present or historical palatalization, iotation, or postalveolar pronunciation in the orthography of some Baltic, Slavic, Finno-Lappic, and other languages. The caron also indicates the third tone (falling and then rising) in the Pinyin romanization of Mandarin Chinese.
It looks similar to a breve, but has a sharp tip, like an inverted circumflex (ˆ), while a breve is rounded. Compare the caron: Ǎ ǎ Ě ě Ǐ ǐ Ǒ ǒ Ǔ ǔ to the breve: Ă ă Ĕ ĕ Ĭ ĭ Ŏ ŏ Ŭ ŭ.
The left (downward) stroke is usually thicker than the right (upward) stroke in serif typefaces.
The caron is also used as a symbol or modifier in mathematics.