The hypodiastole, also known as a diastole, was an interpunct developed in late Ancient and Byzantine Greek texts before the separation of words by spaces was common. In the scriptio continua then used, a group of letters might have separate meanings as a single word or as a pair of words. The papyrological hyphen showed a group of letters should be read together as a single word, and the hypodiastole showed that they should be taken separately. Compare ὅ⸒τι to ὅτι.