M is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet.
History
The letter M represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound [m] in Classical languages as well as the modern languages. It derives its shape from the Greek Μ or μ. Semitic Mem originally pictured water, in all probability.
The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that 'm' is sometimes a vowel in words like spasm and in the suffix -ism.
Alternate representations
Mike represents the letter M in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
In international Morse code the letter M is DahDah: - -
In Braille the letter M is represented as ⠍ (in Unicode), the dot pattern:
XX
..
X.
Computing
In Unicode the capital M is codepoint U+004D and the lowercase m is U+006D.
The ASCII code for capital M is 77 and for lowercase m is 109; or in binary 01001101 and 01101101, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital M is 212 and for lowercase m is 148.
The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "M" and "m" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for M
- In astronomy, M is an abbrevation for "Messier" in designations for the Messier Deepsky Objects.
- In biochemistry, M is the symbol for methionine.
- In calendars, M is often an abbreviation for Monday or for one of the months "March" or "May".
- In chemistry,
- M is the symbol for molarity (M) of solutions.
- m is the symbol for molality (m) of solutions.
- In the CMYK color model, M stands for the color magenta.
- In comic books, M is the name of a member of "Generation X", a team of younger mutants affiliated with and coached by some of the former "X-Men".
- In computing,
- M is a binary prefix meaning 220 = 1,048,576 (cf. M as a Metric prefix below).
- M is another name for the computer programming language MUMPS.
- In currency, M denotes million or millions when used after certain currency expressions, such as $25M (twenty-five million dollars).
- In film,
- In international licence plate codes, M stands for Malta.
- In mathematics, m is used to denote slope in slope-intercept form . An M-set is the opposite of a set of uniqueness.
- In the Metric system,
- In music,
- M is the assumed name of the artist Robin Scott , who performed the 1979 #1 hit song "Pop Muzik".
- -M- is the artist name of the French singer Matthieu Chédid .
- "M" is the pseudonym for a Jazz vocalist hired by Yoko Kanno (see M (singer))
- In physics, M-theory is a proposed solution for problems in superstring theories.
- In radiocommunication, M is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United Kingdom.
- In Roman numerals, M denotes one thousand, from mille in Latin.
- In video games,
- M is the ESRB rating symbol for Mature.
- M is the abbreviation for Mario, a Nintendo character.
- The name of a glitch Pokémon, called 'M. (The real name consists of a glitchy symbol before and after the 'M.)
- M is an abbrevation for the Russian design bureau Myasishchev
See also
Two-letter combinations starting with M:
Letter-digit combinations starting with M:
Last updated: 05-03-2005 17:50:55
