Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
circumflex [Lat. circumflexus ‘in rounded form’]
1 Diacritic mark, in the shape of a hat ‹ˆ› and placed above Latin letters or in the shape of a snake (
tilde) and placed above a Greek letter ( accent2). In ancient Greek, the circumflex denotes a particular tone for the given vowel.
In Romance languages, the circumflex has various uses: in French in combination with e to denote the open vowel [ε] (e.g. forêt) and in combination with o to denote the closed vowel [o] (e.g. rôle); in Rumanian to distinguish between ‹i› for [i] and ‹î› for 
; in Greenlandic to denote vowel length.
2 In Indo-European studies, a designation for overlong syllables (those of three morae). ( also mora, law of three morae)
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