The Tiny Dot You Never Noticed Has a Name

Have you ever stopped to look at the letter "i" or "j"? Not the whole letter — just the small dot sitting on top. That tiny dot has a name. It is called a tittle.

Most people go their entire lives without knowing this word exists. Yet it has been part of the English language since the Middle Ages. The next time someone says "dot the i's and cross the t's," you can correct them. Technically, you should say "tittle the i's."

The word tittle comes from the Latin word titulus, which means a heading, inscription, or small stroke. Interestingly, the English word title comes from the exact same root. So in a way, the dot on top of an "i" and the title of a book are distant cousins — both descendants of the same Latin word.

The tittle is not just a typographical curiosity. It appears in one of the most quoted lines in the Bible. In the King James Version, Matthew 5:18 reads:

Here, "jot" refers to the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and "tittle" refers to the smallest mark in written text. Together, they mean "not even the smallest detail." The phrase "jot or tittle" became an English expression meaning every tiny detail matters.

In modern English, only i and j carry a tittle. However, many other writing systems around the world use similar marks. In Spanish, the letter ñ has a tilde on top. In French, letters like é and ê carry accent marks. These are not technically tittles, but they serve a similar purpose — a small mark above a letter that changes its meaning or sound.

The tittle was not always part of the letter "i." In early Latin manuscripts, the letter i was written without a dot. As handwriting became more compact and letters were written closer together, it became easy to confuse "i" with parts of nearby letters like "m," "n," and "u." Scribes began adding a small mark above the "i" to make it stand out. Over time, that mark became the dot we know today.

The letter "j" came later, evolving from "i" in the Middle Ages, and naturally inherited the dot along with it.

The tittle is a perfect example of how even the smallest things carry surprising stories. A mark so tiny that most people never notice it has traveled through ancient Latin, medieval manuscripts, biblical scripture, and centuries of typographic evolution to land on every "i" and "j" you type today.

So the next time you hit that "i" key, you are not just typing a letter. You are adding a tittle.