Y

Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet.

See V. In Greek Υψιλον (Ypsilon) was pronounced /u/ (later on /y/, now /i/; see English MYTH and GIFT which both have /I/). The Romans borrowed Y directly from the Greek, because they felt that V no longer adequately represented Greek /y/. The English name of the letter - /waI/ - is of unknown origin. In Spanish, Y is called i griega, in Catalan i grega and in French and Dutch i grec (all mean "Greek i"); in most other European languages the Greek name is still used. The letter Y was originally established as a vowel. It is now established both as a vowel and as a consonant. On Wheel of Fortune, the letter Y counts as a consonant.

The letter y was used by Caxton and other printers in mediaeval England to represent the thorn.

Originally, Y was a vowel letter in Greek, representing [u] (later on, front rounded [y], and in Modern Greek, [i]), and it normally has the sound value [y] in German, in Finnish and other Scandinavian languages. The letter Y nicely shows how letters change their function. In Afrikaans, Y denotes the diphthong [EI], probably as a result of mixing lower case i and y or may derive from the IJ ligature. In Dutch, Y appears only in loanwords and names and is usually pronounced [i]. It is often left out of the Dutch alphabet and replaced with the "Dutch Y". Italian, too, has Y only in very few loanwords.

Yankee represents the letter Y in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Meanings for Y

• "The Y" is short for:
  • the YMCA, or sometimes, the YWCA.
  • Brigham Young University (BYU) or the large "Y" made of stones on the mountain overlooking BYU.
• In biochemistry, Y is the symbol for tyrosine.
• In chemistry, Y is the symbol for yttrium.
• In computer science, Y is the name of a case of mathematical combinator; see Y combinator.
• In electrical engineering, Y is the symbol for admittance, the inverse of impedance.
• In film, Y is the name of a 1987 Swedish film; see Y (film).
• In games, Y is the name of a modern board game, played on a triangle-shaped board; see Y (game)
• In geography,
  • Y is the name of a place in Alaska; see Y, Alaska.
  • Y is the name of a municipality in the Somme département of France; see Y, France.
• In mathematics, y is the usual symbol for the variable represented on the vertical axis (ordinate) in analytic geometry.
• In the Metric system,
  • Y, yotta is the SI prefix meaning 10²⁴.
  • y, yocto is the SI prefix meaning 10^-24.
• In sociology, Y refers to Generation Y.
• In statistics and analysis, y denotes the dependent variable.
• In video games, Y is an abbreviation for Yoshi, a Nintendo character.

Two-letter combinations starting with Y:

• ya yb yc yd ye yf yg yh yi yj yk yl ym yn yo yp yq yr ys yt yu yv yw yx yy yz