The word limma or leimma (from Greek: λείμμα, leimma; meaning "remnant") can refer to several different musical intervals, and one form of breath-mark to indicate spacing within lyrics; their only common property is that all are very small either in pitch difference or in time.
More specifically, in Pythagorean tuning (i.e. 3-limit):
and in 5-limit tuning:
A leimma is also the name of a musical / metrical symbol (𝉅) for the timing of sung lyrics. If written over lyrics to it directed the singer to insert the shortest possible pause between words or syllables it was placed over.[1]
Modern equivalents are: