B

The letter B is the second letter of the modern Latin alphabet.

Table of contents

1 History

2 Typography

3 Usage

4 Meanings for B

5 See also

History

The letter B probably started as a pictogram of the floorplan of a house in Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Proto-semitic alphabet.


Egyptian hieroglyphic house	Proto-semitic house	Phoenician beth	Greek beta	Etruscan B	Roman B

By 1500 BC, the Phoenicians had given the letter a linear form that served as the basis for all later forms, which appeared in both the angular and more rounded forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the Hebrew beth.

When the Ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they changed its name to beta and turned the letter upside-down and later added a second loop. In earlier Greek inscriptions, the letter faces to the left, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it faces to the right, although there continued to be variations between pointed and rounded loops.

The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to what is now Italy and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write Latin, and the resulting letter, with rounded loops, has been preserved in the modern Latin alphabet used to write many languages, including English.

Typography

The modern lowercase letter b derives from later Roman times, when scribes began omitting the upper loop of the capital.


Blackletter B	Uncial B

Modern Roman B	Modern Italic B	Modern Script B

Usage

In English, the letter b by itself usual denotes the voiced bilabial plosive (IPA /b/), as in bib, and it sometimes is "silent", as in debt or comb.

In most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter a denotes the voiced bilabial plosive (IPA /b/), although in Spanish, in medial position it denotes the voiced bilabial fricative (IPA /β/).

In the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA, letter b denotes the voiced bilabial plosive. Variants of the letter b denote related bilabial consonants, like voiced bilabial implosive and the bilabial trill. In X-SAMPA, capital B denotes the voiced bilabial fricative.

Bravo represents the letter B in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The ASCII code for capital B is 66 and for lowercase b is 98.

Meanings for B

As a prefix B indicates second rate (where A is first/top rate) e.g. B-movie, B-team.

In chemistry, B is the symbol for the element boron.
in chess, B is a notation symbol for the bishop piece
In computing,
- B is the name of two programming languages, see: B programming language and B specification language.
- <B> is the HTML tag for boldface type.
In education, B is a "good" grade, one below the top grade of A.
In electrical engineering,
- B is the anode (plate) power supply (originally a battery) of vacuum tube circuitry.
- B is the symbol for susceptance, the inverse of reactance.
In English slang, B is a euphemism for bastard or bitch.
In financial securities, B is the stock symbol for Barnes Group Inc..
In hockey, the Boston Bruins are sometimes referred to as the "B's" because of the letter B on the front of their jerseys.
In international licence plate codes, B stands for Belgium.
In mathematics, B is often used as a digit meaning eleven in hexadecimal and other positional numeral systems with a radix of 12 or greater.
In medicine, B is one of the human blood types.
In music, B is a note.
In photography, B is a shutter speed.
In physics, the vector B represents the magnetic field.
In radiocommunication, B is the ITU prefix allocated to China.
In rail transport, B is the UIC classification for the locomotive wheel arrangement known as 0-4-0 in the Whyte notation; a locomotive with two powered axles (and thus four wheels) in which the axles are linked by gearing or side rods.