What is a dead key?

[Eudaimonia]

Hello. In using windows Greek Polytonic to acuire diacritical marks one is instructed to press the 'dead' key. What is a dead key? Thank You........eudaimonia

[modus.irrealis]

Hi,

I believe "dead key" refers to those keys that you press first to change what happens when you press the next key ... what I mean is for example to get ᾶ you first press '[' and then 'a', where '[' is the dead key that puts a circumflex accent on the following letter (if possible). With the Greek Polytonic keyboard, though, there are a lot of dead keys, because of how many different combinations of accents, breathings, and so on are possible.

[Interaxus]

When in doubt, ask Google :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_key

Cheers,
Int