Q, q . The 17th LETTER of the modern Roman ALPHABET as provided for English. It originated together the Phoenician symbol qop, which had actually the worth of a by chance uvular plosive: a k-like sound made well back in the mouth. It was initially embraced by the Greeks as koppa, to stand for /k/ before a back vowel; but classical GREEK desired the letter kappa, the ancestor the K, and also koppa dropped into disuse. The Etruscans supplied three Greek letters, gamma, kappa, and also koppa, for variants on /k/. Koppa was used specifically before /u/, a practice followed by LATIN, which offered the letter that is characteristic curved tail as Q. This letter was little used in OLD ENGLISH, which offered the digraph cw in words currently spelt with qu: cwen/queen, cwic/quick. FRENCH inherited the digraph qu indigenous Latin, and also after the Norman conquest it was progressively used in written English by French-influenced scribes, so the by 1300 cw had actually been supplanted. For a time, qu spread out further specifically in northern English, come words now spelt v wh. This sample persisted longest in Scots, in which, because that example, what was created quhat till the 18c, and quh survives in such surnames together Colquhoun (‘Cahoon’), Farquhar (‘Farker’), and Urquhart (‘Urkart’).Sound value and also occurrence (1) In English, q has the very same value together k or difficult c, and is generally complied with by u, v the joint pronunciation /kw/: quaint, quibble. (2) loss of /w/ in French resulted in spelling transforms that obscure the common ancestry of such English/French pairs as quash/casser, quire/cahier. Top top the other hand, English has occurred qu in words that in French had, and also still have, cu: esquire/écuyer, squirrel/écureuil. (3) In English, qu frequently occurs word-initially before a, e, i, o (quack, quash, quail, quest, queer, quit, quite, quote) and after s (squat, squeal, squirrel). (4) Medial qu additionally occurs: adequate, banquet, equal, frequent, liquid, request. (5) as soon as the Latin prefix ad- precedes qu, the is assimilated together ac: acquaint, acquire, acquit. However, early a sometimes additionally precedes qu without c (aquatic, aquiline) v no difference in pronunciation.Exotic Q, QU (1) Though hardly ever so used, q without u has the exact same value as k and as c prior to a, o, u. The is supplied as a TRANSLITERATION of the HEBREW letter quph and also ARABIC qaf (cognate v Phoenician qop), both uvular plosives provided the worth /k/ in daily English: Iraq, qaf, Qatar, Qur"ān (Koran). (2) In the Pinyin script for Chinese, q to represent the ch sound in cheese, together in Qian-long, Qin-huang-dao: check out CHINA. (3) Words the have gone into English in current centuries from romantic languages have mostly kept the worth of qu together /k/: word-finally through e (arabesque, grotesque, mosque, opaque, picturesque, unique), medially (bouquet, coquette, mosquito), and also occasionally originally (quiche, however not queue), especially in names (Quezon City in the Philippines). The recent French LOAN questionnaire is occasionally pronounced v /k/, but usually through /kw/ by ANALOGY through the earlier loan question. Quay is an 18c respelling the kay or key, through analogy with French quai. There is one alternation in between /kw/ in conquest (compare quest, request) and liquid, and /k/ in conquer/conqueror and also liquor. (4) In the abbreviation Qantas (Queensland and also Northern territory Aerial Services) and also QARANC ( Queen Alexandra"s Royal military Nursing Corps) the q is pronounced as /kw/, together if complied with by a u: ‘Kwontas’, ‘Kwarank’. (5) forms with medial cqu pronounced /k/, include: lacquer, lacquey (now lackey), and racquet (also racket). (6) AmE usually has bark, check, licorice where BrE keeps the q in barque, cheque, liquorice.

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Concise Oxford Companion come the English Language TOM McARTHUR
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Q
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Q1 / kyoō/ (also q) • n. (pl. Qs or Q"s ) the ten letter that the alphabet. ∎  denoting the next after p in a collection of items, categories, etc.PHRASES: mental one"s Ps and Qssee mind.Q2 • abbr. ∎  4 minutes 1 (used to describe a stated quarter of the budget year): we suppose to have an outstanding Q4. ∎  queen (used esp. In describing card games and also recording moves in chess): 17.Qb4. ∎  question: Q: What"s the problem? A: i don"t feel well. ∎  Theol. denoting the hypothetical resource of the passages shared by the gospels that Matthew and Luke, but not discovered in Mark.


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Q 17th letter that the English alphabet and also a letter work in the alphabets of other w europe languages. The is a consonant and is lower from the Semitic letter qoph (a name meaning “ape” or “monkey”), which ended up being qoppa in the Greek alphabet. Qoppa was a rarely supplied letter intended to render the k sound before the lip-rounded back vowels o and u, however only a couple of Greek dialects had a usage for it and it was superseded through kappa. However, the Romans take it it over, retaining its k sound yet invariably complying with it v the letter u to stand for what phoneticians call a labialized membranous plosive (pronounced kw). The qu spelling gotten in all the subsequent Romance languages, and also thence came into English. It retains a kw pronunciation, back in French an especially this has been simplified to a k sound. English preservation both, depending on the origin of words – kw in together words as queen, k in together words as quiche. In a couple of words (mostly ideal names) the Arabic origin, the q has actually no accompanying u and also is an attempt to transliterate a more uvular type of k. However, in English the is pronounced as a usual velar k in such names as Qatar or Iraq. Watch K