A Hebrew diacritic, similar in form to a hyphen, indicating that words joined by it should be pronounced as if they were a single word.
Origin
Late 16th century; earliest use found in John Udall (c1560–?1593), religious controversialist. From post-biblical Hebrew maqqāp (also maqqēp) from Aramaic maqqēp, use as noun of the participle of 'aqqēp to surround, to join.