The
meteg or (older)
metheg is a
punctuation mark in
Hebrew that marks a vowel as fully pronounced, where otherwise it might be expected to be weakened because of its distance from the
stress. The
meteg is a light vertical stroke placed on the left of the
vowel points underneath the consonant. The name means "
bridle".
The stress in Hebrew is normally on the final syllable. Other syllables are weaker, and may be turned into the schwa or neutral vowel, or become silent, depending on their position. The meteg is usually placed by a vowel two places back from the stressed vowel, where a schwa might be expected. It indicates that the vowel is given its full value, not schwa.
In the case of the vowel qamats, which can be both short o or long â depending on position and stress, the meteg indicates the qamats has its fuller, longer value. Example: בָֽ bâ.
The Unicode for meteg is ֽ
R.K. Harrison, Teach Yourself Hebrew, English Universities Press, 1955