Dictionary:

o

  (ō)

1. The 15th letter of the modern English alphabet.
2. Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter o.
3. The 15th in a series.
4. Something shaped like the letter O.
5. O One of the four major blood groups in the ABO system. Individuals with this blood group have neither A nor B antigens on the surface of their red blood cells, and have both anti-A and anti-B antibodies in their blood serum.
6. A zero.

The fifteenth letter of the modern English alphabet is represented by onn [Irish, ash, furze] in the ogham alphabet of early Ireland.

The symbol for diminished.

Basic Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd   Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv   Ww Xx Yy Zz

O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled o (IPA /oʊ/), plural oes.^[1]

History

Egyptian hieroglyph `ir	Proto-Semitic O	Phoenician O	Etruscan O	Greek Omicron

The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin (eye), which represented a consonant, probably the voiced pharyngeal fricative (IPA /ʕ/), the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a similar Egyptian hieroglyph for "eye".

The Greeks are thought to have come up with the innovation of vowel characters, and lacking a pharyngeal consonant, employed this letter as the Greek O to represent the vowel /o/, a sound it maintained in Etruscan and Latin. In Greek, a variation of the form later came to distinguish this long sound (Omega, meaning "large O") from the short o (Omicron, meaning "small o").

Its graphic form has also remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until today. Indeed, even alphabets constructed "from scratch", i.e. not derived from Semitic, usually have similar forms to represent this sound -- for example the creators of the Afaka and Ol Chiki scripts, each invented in different parts of the world in the last century, both attributed their vowels for 'O' to the shape of the mouth when making this sound.

Usage

O is most commonly associated with the close-mid back rounded vowel [o] in many languages. This form is colloquially termed the "long o" in English, but the sound used for it is actually different. In the British prestigious dialect called Received Pronunciation, the diphthong (əʊ) appears. This pronunciation and its spelling sometimes appears in British attempts to describe the French pronunciation of the letter ([o] above); North Americans use [o] for this purpose, whereas the sound they use is really the diphthong: /oʊ/.

In English there is also a "short O", which also has several pronunciations. Received pronunciation uses O to represent an open back rounded vowel (ɒ). The standard pronunciation of the stressed form of this letter in parts of North America is the open-mid back rounded vowel (ɔ). When the vowel is unstressed, its pronunciation often drops back to an open front unrounded vowel (a). The Russian language has a similar unstressed form for its equivalent letter O, which looks the same.

Common digraphs include OO, which represents either /ʊ/ or /u/; OI which typically represents the diphthong /ɔɪ/; and OA, OE, and OU represent a variety of pronunciations depending on context and etymology.

Other languages use O for various values, usually back vowels which are at least partly open. Derived letters such as Ö and Ø have been created for the alphabets of some languages to distinguish values that were not present in Latin and Greek, particularly rounded front vowels.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, [o] represents the close-mid back rounded vowel.

Codes for computing

Alternative representations of O

NATO phonetic		Morse code
Oscar		–––
Signal flag	Semaphore	ASL Manual	Braille

In Unicode the capital O is codepoint U+004F and the lowercase o is U+006F.

The ASCII code for capital O is 79 and for lowercase o is 111; or in binary 01001111 and 01101111, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital O is 214 and for lowercase o is 150.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "O" and "o" for upper and lower case respectively.

Distinguishing O from zero

See 0: Distinguishing zero from O

Meanings of O

See O (disambiguation).

Similar letters and symbols

• 0 (zero)
• Oh
• ò o grave (0x00F2)
• ó o acute (0x00F3)
• ô o circumflex (0x00F4)
• õ o tilde (0x00F5)
• ö o diaeresis (0x00F6)
• ø o stroke (0x00F8)
• ō o macron (0x014D)
• ŏ o breve (0x014F)
• ő o double acute (0x0151)
• œ oe ligature (0x0153)
• ơ o horn (0x01A1)
• ǒ o caron (0x01D2)
• ǫ o ogonek (0x01EB)
• ǭ o ogonek macron (0x01ED)
• ǿ o stroke acute (0x01FF)
• ȍ o double grave (0x020D)
• ȏ o inverted breve (0x020F)
• ȫ o diaeresis macron (0x022B)
• ȭ o tilde macron (0x022D)
• ȯ o dot above (0x022F)
• ȱ o dot above and macron (0x0231)
• ṍ o tilde acute (0x1E4D)
• ṏ o tilde diaeresis (0x1E4F)
• ṑ o macron grave (0x1E51)
• ṓ o macron acute (0x1E53)
• ọ o dot below (0x1ECD)
• ỏ o hook above (0x1ECF)
• ố o circumflex acute (0x1ED1)
• ồ o circumflex grave (0x1ED3)
• ổ o circumflex hook above (0x1ED5)
• ỗ o circumflex tilde (0x1ED7)
• ộ o circumflex dot below (0x1ED9)
• ớ o horn acute (0x1EDB)
• ờ o horn grave (0x1EDD)
• ở o horn hook above (0x1EDF)
• ỡ o horn tilde (0x1EE1)
• ợ o horn dot below (0x1EE3)
• ɵ o bar (0x0275)
• ο Greek omicron (0x03BF)
• о Cyrillic o (0x043E)

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

O

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter O with diacritics ÓóÒòŎŏÔôỐốỒồỖỗỔổǑǒÖöȪȫŐőÕõṌṍṎṏȬȭȮȯȰȱØøǾǿǪǫǬǭŌōṒṓṐṑỎỏȌȍȎȏƠơỚớỜờỠỡỞởỢợỌọỘộƟɵ Two-letter combinations Oa Ob Oc Od Oe Of Og Oh Oi Oj Ok Ol Om On Oo Op Oq Or Os Ot Ou Ov Ow Ox Oy Oz OA OB OC OD OE OF OG OH OI OJ OK OL OM ON OO OP OQ OR OS OT OU OV OW OX OY OZ Letter-digit & Digit-letter combinations                 O0 O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9                 0O 1O 2O 3O 4O 5O 6O 7O 8O 9O history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters

nrm:Ozh-yue:O

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - det 15.bogstavet i alfabetet

2.
abbr. - of, on

1.
n. - 0, nul, almindelig forstavelse i anglo-irske navne

2.
abbr. - Officer, Order, Ohio
symb. - kemisk tegn for ilt

idioms:

• o Level    ordinary level; gammel britisk eksamensbetegnelse

3.
int. - å!, ak!, hvem der havde...!

Nederlands (Dutch)
nul, oud, nulpunt, niets, zuurstof

Français (French)
1.
n. - o (quinzième lettre de l'alphabet)

2.
abbr. - (abrév) d'octave, vieux, seulement, ordre, (Pharm) pinte

1.
n. - O (lettre), zéro

2.
abbr. - (abrév écrite = Ohio) (US, Postes) Ohio, (abrév = over(s)) (Sport) série de six balles ou lancées (au cricket), (abrév) d'Océan
symb. - (Chim) oxygène, groupe sanguin O

idioms:

• o Level    (abrév = Ordinary Level), (GB, École) équivalent du brevet d'études du premier cycle

3.
int. - Oh (excl)

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Null

2.
abbr. - Oktav, Ozean

1.
n. - Null

2.
abbr. - Oktav, Ozean
symb. - Blutgruppe O, (Chem.) Sauerstoff

idioms:

• o Level    Abschluß der Mittelstufe

3.
int. - Oh!

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - το δέκατο πέμπτο γράμμα του αγγλικού αλφαβήτου, μηδέν
abbr. - του (αντί του of)
symb. - οξυγόνο
int. - Ω (σε προσφωνήσεις)
pref. - (σε ιρλανδέζικα ονόματα) γιος του
prep. - του (αντί του of)

idioms:

• o Level    (Βρετ.) διαγωνισμός γυμνασίου (που ίσχυε ώς το 1988)

Italiano (Italian)
O, osservatore, ufficiale, funzionario, oceano, zero, ossigeno

idioms:

• o Level    licenza media

Português (Portuguese)
n. - O (m)
abbr. - Oxigênio (m), octavo (Mus.)
symb. - O (m)
int. - O!
pref. - O (m)
prep. - do

idioms:

• o Level    nível O

Русский (Russian)
ноль, кислород, 15-ая буква англ. алфавита

idioms:

• o Level    аттестат о среднем образовании

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - letra O

2.
abbr. - orden, viejo, pinta, octavo, solamente, apagado

1.
n. - letra O, objeto con forma de o

2.
abbr. - Ohio, cero, nulidad
symb. - oxígeno, tipo sanguíneo

idioms:

• o Level    crédito de enseñanza elemental (en Inglaterra)

3.
int. - Oh!

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - O, nolla, noll
abbr. - O, Ocean, Ohio, Old, oxygen:syre
symb. - den femtonde i ordningen el i en serie, blodgrupp O, noll, oxygen
int. - O!, ack!
pref. - O' (obetonad förstavelse i vissa irländska namn)
prep. - från, av

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
1. 英语字母中的第十五个字母, 小写为o, 零

idioms:

• o Level    普通程度, 中学生的普通考试

2. 美国俄亥俄州, 棒球等的出局, 海, 氧气

1. 英语字母的第十五个字母, 圆形, o字形物, 零

2. 八开纸, 八开本, 一品脱的量, 棒球等的出局

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
1.
int. - 英語字母中的第十五個字母, 小寫為o, 零

idioms:

• o Level    普通程度, 中學生的普通考試

2.
abbr. - 美國俄亥俄州, 棒球等的出局, 海, 氧氣

1.
abbr. - 八開紙, 八開本, 一品脫的量, 棒球等的出局

2.
n. - 英語字母的第十五個字母, 圓形, o字形物, 零

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 숫자의 0

2.
abbr. - of의 단축형

1.
n. - 영어 알파벳의 제15째 글자 O, 원형

2.
abbr. - Oxygen(산소)
symb. - 감탄의 의미를 지닌 오!

3.
int. - 오! , 아!, 어머나!

日本語 (Japanese)
int. - ああ, あっ
n. - オー, O字形のもの, ゼロ

idioms:

• o Level    普通級

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الحرف الخامس عشر من الحروف الأبجديه الإنجليزيه (اختصار) Ohm, وحدة قوة المقاومه الكهربائيه, لمOنهزذظ, الأكسجين (علامه) مختصر zero: صفر, أوكسجين oxygen , صنف دم (نداء) آه (بادئه الكلمه) بادئه للأسماء الأيرلنديه تعني " أبن ", (كيمياء) أورثو ( مستقيم) (حرف جر) مختصر كلمه on أو of‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮האות החמש-עשרה של האלפבית האנגלי‬
abbr. - ‮קיצור של FO (של) במספר ביטויים באנגלית‬
n. - ‮סוג דם ממערכת OBA, אפס, שום-דבר‬
abbr. - ‮אוהיו (מדינה בארה"ב), קריאת שופט להחלפת צדדים (קריקט)‬
symb. - ‮חמצן (יסוד)‬
int. - ‮אוי, הו‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.