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A dot beneath a letter: visible on the object but not certainly that letter.
Also known as: Sublinear dot, Dotted letter, Dot under a letter
A small dot under a printed letter is one of the most useful and least noticed marks in scholarship. It says the editor can see traces there and reads them this way, but another reading is possible from what actually survives.
A dot placed beneath a printed letter, indicating that traces of the letter survive on the object but are damaged or ambiguous enough that the reading is not certain.
Contexts: History
Distinct from a square bracket in a way that matters. A dotted letter is evidence, read cautiously; a bracketed letter is not evidence at all.
The mark is easy to lose in reproduction, in quotation and in transcription to plain text, so a dotted reading is regularly passed on as a certain one.
A quotation stripped of its underdots silently upgrades uncertain readings to certain ones.
A single small dot placed directly below a letter, on or just under the baseline.