çà

From Middle French and Old French ça, from Vulgar Latin *ecce hāc. Compare Portuguese cá, Spanish acá. The grave accent now serves to distinguish it from ça (“that”). However, çà was already widely spelt thus before ça became common in writing, and in fact the accent was formerly also found for the latter. Thus perhaps by analogy with là. Compare also jà (where the accent has no clear purpose).

• IPA^(key): /sa/

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• Homophones: ça, sa

çà

1. (archaic) hither

• Today only used in the expression çà et là.

• çà et là

çà

1. so, well, then (with exhortative or intensive effect)
2. (archaic) la! (expressing strong emotion of anger, surprise etc.)

• “çà”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.