13th letter of the Latin alphabet
Not to be confused with
ញ ,
ᛖ ,
₥ ,
ℳ ,
ෆ , or
ʍ .
M , or m , is the thirteenth
letter of the
Latin alphabet , used in the
modern English alphabet , the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is
em (pronounced ), plural ems .
[1]
History
Egyptian hieroglyph "n"
Phoenician
Mem
Western Greek
Mu
Etruscan M
Latin M
The letter M is derived from the
Phoenician
Mem , via the
Greek
Mu (Μ, μ).
Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a "
Proto-Sinaitic " (
Bronze Age ) adoption of the
"water" ideogram in
Egyptian writing . The Egyptian sign had the
acrophonic value /n/ , from the Egyptian word for "water", nt ; the adoption as the Semitic letter for /m/ was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the
Semitic word for "water",
*mā(y)- .
[2]
Use in writing systems
English
In
English , ⟨m⟩ represents the
voiced bilabial nasal /m/ .
The
Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that ⟨m⟩ is sometimes a
vowel , in words like spasm and in the
suffix -ism . In modern terminology, this is described as a
syllabic consonant (IPA /m̩/ ).
M is the
fourteenth most frequently used letter in the English language.
Other languages
The letter ⟨m⟩ represents the
voiced bilabial nasal /m/ in the orthography of Latin as well as in those of many modern
languages .
In
Washo , lower-case ⟨m⟩ represents a
voiced bilabial nasal /m/ , while upper-case ⟨M⟩ represents a
voiceless bilabial nasal /m̥/ .
Other systems
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet , ⟨m⟩ represents the
voiced bilabial nasal /m/ .
Other uses
Styled letter M in the coat of arms of
Miehikkälä
The
Roman numeral M represents the number
1000 , though it was not used in Roman times. There is, however, scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A.D. by the Romans.
[3]
Unit prefix M (mega), meaning one million times, and m (milli) meaning one-thousandth.
[4]
[5]
m is the standard abbreviation for
metre (or meter) in the
International System of Units (SI).
[4] However, m is also used as an abbreviation for
mile .
[5]
M is used as the unit abbreviation for
molarity .
[4]
With money amounts, m or M can mean one million: For example, $5m is five million dollars.
[4]
[5]
M often represents male or masculine, especially in conjunction with F for female or feminine.
[4]
[5]
M (James Bond) is a fictional character in
Ian Fleming 's
James Bond book and
film series.
In typography, an
em dash is a punctuation symbol whose width is equal to that of a capital letter M.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
M with
diacritics :
Ḿ ḿ
Ṁ ṁ Ṃ ṃ M̃ m̃ ᵯ
[6]
IPA -specific symbols related to M:
ɱ
ɰ
Ɱ :
Capital M with hook
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet -specific symbols related to M:
[7]
U+1D0D ᴍ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL M
U+1D1F ᴟ LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS TURNED M
U+1D39 ᴹ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL M
U+1D50 ᵐ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M
U+1D5A ᵚ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED M
Some symbols related to M were used by the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902:
[8]
U+2098 ₘ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER M
U+A7FA ꟺ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED M
The
Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses U+AB3A ꬺ LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH CROSSED-TAIL
[9]
Other variations used for phonetic transcription:
[10]
ᶆ
ᶬ
ᶭ
Ɯ ɯ :
Turned M
ꟽ : Inverted M was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for mulier (woman)
[11]
ꟿ : Archaic M was used in ancient Roman texts to abbreviate the personal name 'Manius' (A regular capital M was used for the more common personal name 'Marcus')
[11]
ℳ : currency symbol for
Mark
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
𐤌 :
Semitic letter
Mem , from which the following symbols originally derive
Μ μ :
Greek letter
Mu , from which M derives
Ⲙ ⲙ :
Coptic letter Me, which derives from Greek Mu
М м :
Cyrillic letter
Em , also derived from Mu
𐌌 :
Old Italic M, which derives from Greek Mu, and is the ancestor of modern Latin M
ᛗ :
Runic letter
Mannaz , which derives from old Italic M
𐌼 :
Gothic letter manna, which derives from Greek Mu
Ligatures and abbreviations
Other representations
Computing
Character information
Preview
M
m
M
m
Unicode name
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M
LATIN SMALL LETTER M
FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M
FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER M
Encodings
decimal
hex
dec
hex
dec
hex
dec
hex
Unicode
77
U+004D
109
U+006D
65325
U+FF2D
65357
U+FF4D
UTF-8
77
4D
109
6D
239 188 173
EF BC AD
239 189 141
EF BD 8D
Numeric character reference
M
M
m
m
M
M
m
m
EBCDIC family
212
D4
148
94
ASCII 1
77
4D
109
6D
1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.
Other
References
^ "M"
Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd edition (1989);
Merriam-Webster 's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "em," op. cit.
^ See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic — Progenitor of the Alphabet" Rosetta 9 (2011):
Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38)
Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39),
Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" (
fig. 1
Archived 2016-07-03 at the
Wayback Machine ).
^ Gordon, Arthur E. (1983).
Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy .
University of California Press . pp.
45 .
ISBN
9780520038981 . Retrieved 3 October 2015 . roman numerals.
^
a
b
c
d
e
"What does M stand for?" . The Free Dictionary .
Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2021 .
^
a
b
c
d
"M definition and meaning" . Collins English Dictionary .
Archived from the original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2021 .
^ Constable, Peter (2003-09-30).
"L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^
Everson, Michael ; et al. (2002-03-20).
"L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27).
"L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02).
"L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Constable, Peter (2004-04-19).
"L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^
a
b Perry, David J. (2006-08-01).
"L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF) .
Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14. Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
External links
Media related to
M at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of
M at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of
m at Wiktionary