n

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The 14th letter of the modern English alphabet.
• noun Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter n.
• noun The 14th in a series.
• noun Something shaped like the letter N.
• abbreviation Grammar neuter
• abbreviation neutron
• abbreviation Chemistry normal

from The Century Dictionary.

• An abbreviation
• of North America, or North American;
• of National Academy, or National Academician;
• in microscopy, of numerical aperture (see objective).
• noun An abbreviation of the Latin nota bene, literally, mark or note well—that is, take particular notice.
• noun An abbreviation of New Latin.
• An abbreviation
• of New Style, and
• of New Series.
• noun An abbreviation of New Testament.
• An abbreviation of northwest.
• The fourteenth letter and eleventh consonant in the English alphabet, having a corresponding place also in the alphabets from which ours comes.
• The value of the character has been the same through the whole history of its use. It stands for the “dental” nasal, the nasal sound corresponding to d and t, as does m to b and p, and ng to g and k. This sound, namely, implies for its formation the same check or mute-contact as d and t, with sonant vibration of the vocal cords as in d, and further with unclosure of the passage from the mouth into the nose, and nasal resonance there. Among the nasals, it is by far the most common in English pronunciation (more than twice as common as m, and eight times as common as ng). While all the nasals are semivocalic or liquid, n is the only one which (like l, but not more than half as often) is used with vocalic value in syllable-making: namely, in unaccented syllables, where an accompanying vowel, formerly uttered, is now silenced: examples are token, rotten, open, lesson, reason, oven; such form, on an average, about one in eight hundred of English syllables. The sign n has no variety of sounds; but before ch, j, in the same syllable (as in inch, hinge) it takes on a slightly modified—a palatalized—character; and similarly it is gutturalized, or pronounced as ng, before k and g (hard), as in ink, finger; and its digraph ng (see G) is the usual representative of the guttural or back-palatal nasal, which in none of our alphabets has a letter to itself. N is doubled under the same circumstances as other consonants, and in a few words (as kiln, damn, hymn) is silent. In the phonetic history of our family of languages, n is on the whole a constant sound; that is to say, there is no other sound into which it passes on a large scale; but its loss, with accompanying vowel-modification, has been a frequent process.
• As a medieval numeral, 90, and with a stroke over it (Ñ), 90,000.
• In chem., the symbol for nitrogen.
• In mathematics, an indefinite constant whole number, especially the degree of a quantic or an equation, or the class of a curve.
• An abbreviation
• of north or northern;
• of noun (so used in this work);
• of neuter;
• of nail (or nails), a measure.
• noun An abbreviation of New Brunswick; of North Britain; of North British.
• noun An abbreviation of New Church; of North Carolina.
• noun An abbreviation of no date.
• An abbreviation
• of National Guard;
• of no good or no go.
• noun An abbreviation of New England;
• noun of northeast;
• noun of Northeastern Postal District, London.
• An abbreviation
• of Newfoundland;
• of New French;
• of Norman French.
• An abbreviation
• of New Granada;
• of Noble Grand.
• noun An abbreviation of New Hampshire.
• noun An abbreviation of Native Infantry.
• An abbreviation
• of Nationalist;
• in meteor., of nimbus;
• in chem., of normal, in reference to the strength of a solution; ⁄110 n. stands for one tenth normal strength, or a normal solution diluted tenfold: also written /₁₀ or /₁₀. See normal solution.