P is the 16th letter of the Latin alphabet.
Semitic Pê (mouth) as well as Greek Π or π (Pi) and the Etruscan and Latin letters that developed from the former alphabet all symbolized /p/, a plosive, unvoiced consonant. Those who speak Arabic usually have difficulty pronouncing this sound; they pronounce like b instead.
Papa represents the letter P in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Phonetic use
In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive ('p' in the IPA). A common digraph in English is "ph", which represents the voiceless labiodental fricative 'f', and is commonly used to transliterate φ in loanwords from Greek. Both initial and final P can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words. A common example of assimilation is the tendency of prefixes ending in N to become M before P (such as "in" + "pulse" -> "impulse").
In German, the digraph "pf" is common, representing a labial affricate of 'p' and 'f'.
Meanings for P
- In baseball, P is the abbreviation for the position of pitcher.
- In biochemistry, P is the symbol for proline.
- In chemistry, P is the symbol for the element phosphorus, or sometimes for phosphate.
- In chess, P is sometimes used as a notation symbol for the pawn piece
- In computer science,
- In computing,
<p>
is the HTML tag to mark the beginning of paragraphs.
- In driving a motor vehicle, P designates the parking gear of an automatic transmission.
- In international licence plate codes, P stands for Portugal.
- In mathematics, blackboard bold represents the prime numbers
- In New Zealand P is slang for pure methamphetamine.
- In the Metric system,
- p, Pico, is an SI prefix meaning 10-12.
- P, Peta, is an SI prefix meaning 1015
- p is the symbol for the pond, a now obsolete unit of force; see kilopond.
- In British coinage, it is the symbol for penny (pl. pence). i.e. 25p (25 pence).
- In physics,
- In probability and statistics,
- p denotes probability
- the p-value of a given result in an experiment the is result's significance; that is, the probability of observing this result or a more extreme result, by chance alone.
- In publishing, a circled P, Ⓟ, represents a copyright on a sound recording.
- In symbolic logic, p is often used to denote a proposition as well as q and r.
Two-letter combinations starting with P:
Letter-digit combinations starting with P:
Last updated: 02-08-2005 03:54:44
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55