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F, or f, is the sixth
letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
in the
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.


History

The origin of 'F' is the Semitic letter '' waw'' that represented a sound like or . Graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph such as that which represented the word ''mace'' (transliterated as ḥ(dj)): T3 The Phoenician form of the letter was adopted into Greek as a vowel, ''
upsilon Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; el, ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, grc, Υʹ, label=none has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw . E ...
'' (which resembled its descendant ' Y' but was also the ancestor of the Roman letters ' U', ' V', and ' W'); and, with another form, as a consonant, ''
digamma Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
'', which indicated the pronunciation , as in Phoenician. Latin 'F,' despite being pronounced differently, is ultimately descended from digamma and closely resembles it in form. After sound changes eliminated from spoken Greek, ''digamma'' was used only as a numeral. However, the Greek alphabet also gave rise to other alphabets, and some of these retained letters descended from digamma. In the
Etruscan alphabet The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy, to write their language, from about 700 BC to sometime around 100 AD. The Etruscan alphabet derives from the Euboean alphabet u ...
, 'F' probably represented , as in Greek, and the Etruscans formed the digraph 'FH' to represent . (At the time these letters were borrowed, there was no Greek letter that represented /f/: the Greek letter
phi Phi (; uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ; grc, ϕεῖ ''pheî'' ; Modern Greek: ''fi'' ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In Archaic and Classical Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voicele ...
'Φ' then represented an aspirated
voiceless bilabial plosive The voiceless bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in most spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. Features Features o ...
, although in Modern Greek it has come to represent .) When the Romans adopted the alphabet, they used 'V' (from Greek ''upsilon'') not only for the vowel , but also for the corresponding semivowel , leaving 'F' available for . And so out of the various ''vav'' variants in the Mediterranean world, the letter F entered the Roman alphabet attached to a sound which the Greeks did not have. The Roman alphabet forms the basis of the alphabet used today for English and many other languages. The
lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
'f' is not related to the visually similar
long s The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "poſ ...
, 'ſ' (or medial s). The use of the ''long s'' largely died out by the beginning of the 19th century, mostly to prevent confusion with 'f' when using a short mid-bar.


Use in writing systems


English

In the English writing system is used to represent the sound , the
voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...
. It is often doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the
voiced labiodental fricative The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v. The sound is similar to vo ...
in the common word "of". F is the eleventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after G, Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.23% in words.


Other languages

In the writing systems of other languages, commonly represents , or . * In
French orthography French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, a ...
, is used to represent . It may also be silent at the end of words. * In
Spanish orthography Spanish orthography is the orthography used in the Spanish language. The alphabet uses the Latin script. The spelling is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English, having a relatively consistent mapping ...
, is used to represent . * In the Hepburn romanization of
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
, is used to represent . This sound is usually considered to be an
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
of , which is pronounced in different ways depending upon its context; Japanese is pronounced as before . * In
Welsh orthography Welsh orthography uses 29 letters (including eight digraphs) of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords. The acute accent (), the grave accent (), the circumflex (, , or ) and the diaeresis mark () a ...
, represents while represents . * In
Slavic language The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ea ...
s, is used primarily in words of foreign (Greek, Latin, or Germanic) origin. * In spoken Icelandic, in the middle of a word is often pronounced as a v (e.g. Að sofa - to sleep).


International Phonetic Alphabet

The
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
uses to represent the
voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...
.


In mathematics

An italic letter is conventionally used to denote an arbitrary
function Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
. See also
f with hook F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...
(ƒ).


In music

A bold italic letter is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "loud or strong". It stands for the
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
word ''forte''.


In education

In countries such as the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, the letter "F" is defined as a failure in terms of academic evaluation. Other countries that use this system include Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the Netherlands.


In computing

In the hexadecimal number system, the letter "F" or "f" is used to represent the hexadecimal digit fifteen (equivalent to 1510).


Other uses

The letter F has become an Internet meme, where it is used to pay respects. This use is derived from the 2014 video game '' Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare'', where in a quick-time event protagonist Jack Mitchell must pay his respects to his friend Will Irons who fell in combat in a previous mission, represented by the player pressing F when playing the PC version. People on the Internet use the letter F usually in a genuine way to express respects, sadness or condolences towards other Internet personalities, Internet memes or other players on certain events, such as death, misfortune or the end of a phenomenon, company, game, series, etc.


Related characters


Ancestors, descendants and siblings

* F with
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s: ** Ƒ ƒ ** Ḟ ḟ ** ᵮ ** ** Ꞙ ꞙ : F with stroke is used in the Anthropos phonetic transcription system and older Ewe writing * ꬵ : Lenis F is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system * f: Superscript "f", encoded as in the
Phonetic Extensions Supplement Phonetic Extensions Supplement is a Unicode block containing characters for specialized and deprecated forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation ...
block of
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
, is used in some forms of the
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. * ꜰ : Small capital F was used in the Icelandic
First Grammatical Treatise The First Grammatical Treatise ( is, Fyrsta málfræðiritgerðin ) is a 12th-century work on the phonology of the Old Norse or Old Icelandic language. It was given this name because it is the first of four grammatical works bound in the Icelandic ...
to mark
gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
* ꟳ : Modifier letter capital F - Used to mark tone for the Chatino orthography in Oaxaca, Mexico; Used as a generic transcription for a falling tone; Used in para- IPA notation * Ꝼ ꝼ : Insular F is used in Norse and Old English contexts * ꟻ : Reversed F was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for (daughter) or (woman) * Ⅎ ⅎ : Claudian letters * 𐤅: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive ** Ϝ ϝ :
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letter
Digamma Digamma or wau (uppercase: Ϝ, lowercase: ϝ, numeral: ϛ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet. It originally stood for the sound but it has remained in use principally as a Greek numeral for 6. Whereas it was originally called ''waw' ...
, from which F derives *** 𐌅 : Old Italic V/F (originally used for V, in languages such as Etruscan and Oscan), which derives from Greek Digamma, and is the ancestor of modern Latin F *** Y y : Latin letter Y, sharing its roots with F *** V v : Latin letter V, also sharing its roots with F *** U u : Latin letter U, which is descended from V *** W w : Latin letter W, also descended from V


Ligatures and abbreviations

* ₣ :
French franc The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...
, Latin capital letter F with stroke * : degree Fahrenheit


Code points

These are the
code point In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s for the forms of the letter in various systems : 1


Other representations


Use as a number

In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, F is a number that corresponds to the number 15 in decimal (base 10) counting.


Notes


References


External links

* * * {{Latin alphabet, F} ISO basic Latin letters