w

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The 23rd letter of the modern English alphabet.
2. n. Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter w.
3. n. The 23rd in a series.
4. n. Something shaped like the letter W.
5. abbr. weight.
6. abbr. width.
7. abbr. Physics work

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. An abbreviation [lowercase] in a ship's log-book, of wet dew
2. of Western Postal District, London
3. [lowercase] of wife
4. of Wolfram
5. [lowercase or cap.] in electrotechnics, of work
6. in electricity, of watt, the unit of electric power
7. nautical, of winter free-board line. See free-board.
8. An abbreviation of West Africa
9. of West Australia.
10. n. An abbreviation of Water Board
11. n. of way-bill.
12. n. An abbreviation [lowercase or cap.] of water-closet
13. n. of Wesleyan Chapel
14. n. of Western Central (London Postal District)
15. n. [lowercase] of without charge.
16. n. An abbreviation of West Indies.
17. An abbreviation of wave-length.
18. An abbreviation of Worshipful Master.
19. An abbreviation of War Office.
20. n. An abbreviation of Worthy Patriarch.
21. n. Ar. abbreviation of West Riding;
22. n. of William Rex (King William).
23. n. An abbreviation of West Saxon.
24. The twenty-third letter and eighteenth consonant-sign in the English alphabet. It has a double value, as consonant and as vowel. As an alphabetic character it is of very modern date, being one of the four that have sprung from the Y or V added by the Greeks to the older Phenician alphabet, and one of the three (U, V, W) that have grown out of the Roman form of that character (see U).It was made (as pointed out under U) by doubling the U- or V- sign (hence called double U), in order to distinguish properly the semivowel sound w from the spirant v and the vowel u. It was formerly often printed as two V's, VV, vv. It began to be used in the eleventh century, and gradually crowded out the special sign for the same sound which the Anglo-Saxon alphabet had possessed. The alphabetic sound distinctively represented by w is the labial semivowel, which stands in precisely the same relation to oo (ö) in which consonantal y stands to ee (ē). Each of these semivowels, if not of precisely the same mode of production with the corresponding vowel, is at any rate only very slightly different from it; w is virtually an oo which is abbreviated into a mere prefix to another vowel, a close position from which the organs by opening reach another vowel-sound; and a prolonged w is an oo. On the other hand, the semivowel w (like the semivowel y) can be only very imperfectly and indistinctly uttered after a vowel, and our w in that position is but another way of writing u; it is found only in the combinations aw, em, ow, which are equivalent to au, eu, ou; and as so used it could disappear from the language without any loss, but rather with profit. The semivowel sound w (including wh and qu, which is a way of writing kw: see under Q) is a not uncommon element of English utterance, being about 2⅓ per cent. of it (a little less than the spirant v). In many languages—for example, in all those that are descended from the Latin—the semivowel w tends to pass over into the spirant v-sound, and hence the spirant value of our v, which was the representative in Latin of the w-sound. In Anglo-Saxon a w stood and was pronounced also before r (and in a few words before l); in such words as write, wring, the character is retained, though the sound is lost. In Anglo-Saxon, also, the w was in many words pronounced with a preceding aspiration, the relic of an original prefixed guttural mute, and it was consistently and properly so written: for example, hwīt, white, hwǣr, where. In modern English the h has by an odd and unaccountable caprice had its place in writing changed to after the w (perhaps by analogy with the similar blunder shown in writing rh in Latin for the Greek aspirated r, or hr, or by a blind conformity with the frequent initial digraphs th, ph, sh). There is dispute among phonetists at present as to the true character of this wh-sound, some maintaining that it is not a w with preceding aspiration, but a surd counterpart to w, standing related to it as, for example, an f to a v, or an s to a z. This view rests in part, probably, on some actual difference of utterance, but in part also on unfamiliarity with the real (wh;) for in England the aspiration is now very generally omitted, and when, white, etc., are pronounced as wen, wite, etc. It admits of no question, however, that when, for example, is related to hoo-en precisely as wen to oo-en, the difference in each case consisting in an aspiration prefixed respectively to the vowel and semivowel—just as, correspondingly, hew (which shows an h prefixed to the English “long u” sound, or yoo) is related to hē-oo precisely as ewe to ē-oo: the h being here, as everywhere else (see H), uttered through the same position of the mouth-organs as the following sound. W is sometimes silent, not only as initial before r (see above), but elsewhere, as in two, sword, answer, etc. It is never doubled. The assimilating influence of a w (whether written with w or with u in the combination qu) in a following a -sound is very marked, giving the a in many words the short sound of o , as in what, squad, etc., or the broad sound of a (â), as in war, quart, thwart, etc.
25. As a symbol:
26. In chem., the symbol for tungsten (NL. wolframium).
27. In hydrodynamics, the symbol for the component of the velocity parallel to the axis of Z.
28. As an abbreviation:
29. of west;
30. of western;
31. of William;
32. of Wednesday;
33. of Welsh;
34. of warden;
35. of week.
36. n. In printing, an abbreviation of wrong font: a mark on the margin of a proof, calling attention to the fact that the letter or letters, etc., opposite differ from the rest in size or face.
37. n. An abbreviation of Worthy Grand, prefixed to various titles of office among Free-masons and similar orders: as, W. G. C. (Worthy Grand Chaplain or Conductor).
38. n. An abbreviation of writer to the signet. See signet.

Wiktionary

1. n. The twenty-third letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.
2. n. The first letter of callsigns allocated to American broadcast television and radio stations east of the Mississippi river.
3. n. voiced labial-velar approximant
4. n. The twenty-third letter of the English alphabet, called double-u and written in the Latin script.
5. abbr. watt
6. abbr. west
7. abbr. cricket wide
8. abbr. white
9. abbr. witness
10. abbr. work

GNU Webster's 1913

1. the twenty-third letter of the English alphabet, is usually a consonant, but sometimes it is a vowel, forming the second element of certain diphthongs, as in few, how. It takes its written form and its name from the repetition of a V, this being the original form of Roman capital letter which we call U. Etymologically it is most related to v and u. See V, and U. Some of the uneducated classes in England, especially in London, confuse w and v, substituting the one for the other, as weal for veal, and veal for weal; wine for vine, and vine for wine, etc. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 266-268.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a unit of power equal to 1 joule per second; the power dissipated by a current of 1 ampere flowing across a resistance of 1 ohm
2. n. the cardinal compass point that is a 270 degrees
3. n. a heavy grey-white metallic element; the pure form is used mainly in electrical applications; it is found in several ores including wolframite and scheelite
4. n. the 23rd letter of the Roman alphabet