Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

B

(bē)

is the second letter of the English alphabet. (See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 196, 220.) It is etymologically related to p, v, f, w, and m, letters representing sounds having a close organic affinity to its own sound; as in Eng. bursar and purser; Eng. bear and Lat. ferre; Eng. silver and Ger. silber; Lat. cubitum and It. gomito; Eng. seven, Anglo-Saxon seofon, Ger. sieben, Lat. septem, Gr.

ἑπτά

, Sanskrit saptan. The form of letter B is Roman, from the Greek B (Beta), of Semitic origin. The small b was formed by gradual change from the capital B.

(Music)

, B is the nominal of the seventh tone in the model major scale (the scale of C major), or of the second tone in it’s relative minor scale (that of A minor). B♭ stands for B flat, the tone a half step, or semitone, lower than B. In German, B stands for our B♭, while our B natural is called H (pronounced hä).

Webster 1828 Edition

B

is the second letter, and the first articulation, or consonant, in the English, as in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and most other alphabets. In the Ethiopic, it is the ninth letter, and its shape is that of a hut. Perhaps from this or other like figure, it received its Hebrew name, beth, a house. It is a mute and a labial, being formed by pressing the whole length of the lips together, as in pronouncing eb. It is less perfectly mute than p, as may be perceived by pronouncing the syllables ab and ap. It is convertible, 1st, with p, as in the Celtic, ben or pen, a mountain; in the English, beak and peak, beck and peck; 2d, with v, as in the German, silber for silver; and in Spanish, b and v are used indifferently; 3d, with f, as in bore and perforo; Eng. bear, L.fero;in the celtic bun,bunadh, bunait, stock,origin,foundation; English,found; L.fundamentum; with the Gr.as Bilip; 4th,with the v and w; as,Ir.fior, L. verus; fear, vir; Ir. buaic, the wick of a candle.

The Greek B is always pronounced like the English V, and the Russian B corresponds with the Greek.

In composition, the letter B is changed into p before the letter p; as in opprimo, from ob and premo; oppono, from ob and pono; into f, before f, as in offero, from ob and fero; into c before c, as in occido, from ob and cado, and coedo.

As a numeral, B was used by the Hebrews and Greeks, as now by the Arabians, for 2; by the Romans for 300, and with a dash over it thus B, for 3000. B is used also as an abbreviation; thus B.A. stand for bachelor of arts; B.L. for bachelor of laws; B.D. for bachelor of divinity; B.F. before the decrees of the old Romans, for bonum factum. In music, B stands for the tone above A; for B flat,or the semi-tone major above A. B also stands for base, and

B

.C. for basso continuo, or thorough base.

Definition 2024

B

B	U+0042, B LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B

← A
[U+0041]

Basic Latin

C →
[U+0043]

See also: Appendix:Variations of "b"

Translingual

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek letter Β ‎(B, “Beta”).

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

The second letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.

Usage notes

The letter B (usually its lower case form b) is used in several romanization systems of non-Latin scripts to represent the bilabial plosive or stop, usually voiced (/b/).

Etymology 2

(blood type):, from antigen B
(symbol for boron): abbreviation of boron
(hexadecimal 11): The eleventh item from the sequence {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}

Symbol

A blood type that has a specific antigen that aggravates the immune response in people with type A antigen in their blood. They can receive blood from type B or type O, but cannot receive blood from AB or A.
(chemistry) The symbol for boron.
(computing) Hexadecimal symbol for 11.
(biochemistry) IUPAC 1-letter abbreviation for either glutamine or glutamic acid

English

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b, plural Bs or B's)

The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.
- 1945 May, George Orwell, chapter 3, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:
  
  Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof […]

Usage notes

In Modern English, the letter B is sometimes silent, e.g. in climb, and debt.

Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals of single upper case letters, especially at the start of a sentence:

A’s are difficult to achieve in this class.

Usually, though, the apostrophe is avoided when there is no risk of confusion:

She gets straight As in school.

Number

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The ordinal number second, derived from this letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Etymology 2

(cricket, balls): abbreviation of balls
(billion): abbreviation of billion
(black): abbreviation of black

Abbreviation

(cricket) the number of balls faced by a batsman
The quantity one billion (1,000,000,000), usually used to signify a sum of money
$2.8 B — “two point eight billion dollars” (i.e., $2,800,000,000)
(Britain) The grade of pencil that makes darker marks than grade HB but lighter marks than grade 2B; a pencil with soft lead.
(chess) Bishop

Etymology 3

(personality type): from contrast with the letter ‘A’ and its corresponding personality type
(academic grade): from the position of the letter ‘B’ in the English alphabet

Noun

B ‎(plural Bs)

A personality type of someone who is relaxed and easygoing and able to engage in leisure activities without worrying about work.
An academic grade, better than a C and worse than an A
Signifies a second-tier or second class of a given commodity, group, or category, as in B-movie, B-list, etc.
The television studio revived some of it's B characters for the spinoff.
Alternate or secondary part, as the back side of a phonograph record. Contrasted with A, which is the primary part.
(music) The seventh note in the C major scale.

Translations

musical note

Czech: H (cs)
Faroese: H n
Finnish: H (fi)

French: si (fr) m
German: H (de) n

Usage notes

Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals of single upper case letters, especially at the start of a sentence:

A’s are difficult to achieve in this class.

Usually, though, the apostrophe is avoided when there is no risk of confusion:

She gets straight As in school.

Symbol

(computing) byte

Derived terms

(computing): Bps , B/s
(computing): kB , MB , GB , TB , PB , EB

Translations

byte

French: o (fr) (octet)

Proper noun

(computer languages) A programming language from which C is derived.

American Sign Language

Alternative forms

(thumb unopposed and flat against the radial edge of the palm, used in rapid fingerspelling of words like B-A-B-Y) FlatB

Etymology

From French Sign Language sign for the letter B.

Production

This one-handed ASL sign is produced as follows:

Posture the dominant hand in the “B” handshape .

Letter

‎(Stokoe B)

The letter B

Azeri

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

The second letter of the Azeri alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Catalan

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /be/

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Catalan alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Czech

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /beː/

Letter

B (the 2nd letter in the Czech alphabet)
(music): B flat

Dutch

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /beː/

Letter

B ‎(capital, lowercase b)

The second letter of the Dutch alphabet.

Esperanto

Pronunciation

(letter name): IPA^(key): /bo/
(phoneme): IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Esperanto alphabet, called bo and written in the Latin script.

Finnish

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Finnish alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

Used only in loanwords.

Abbreviation

lubenter approbatur

German

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /beː/

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the German alphabet.

Noun

B n ‎(genitive B, no plural)

(music) B-flat

Declension

Declension of B (uncountable)

	singular
	indef.	def.	noun
nominative	ein	das	B
genitive	eines	des	B
dative	einem	dem	B
accusative	ein	das	B

German Sign Language

Etymology

Related to the French Sign Language sign for "B".

Production

This one-handed GSL sign is produced as follows:

Posture the dominant hand in the “B” shape.

Letter

the letter B

Ido

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

B ‎(lower case b)

The second letter of the Ido alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Italian

Pronunciation

(letter name) IPA^(key): /bi/
(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

B m, f ‎(lower case b)

The second letter of the Italian alphabet, called bi and written in the Latin script.

Latvian

Etymology

Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed by K. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in German Fraktur, and sporadically in Cyrillic.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [b]

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The third letter of the Latvian alphabet, called bē and written in the Latin script.

Malay

Pronunciation

(Name of letter) IPA^(key): [bi]
(Phoneme, Syllable initial) IPA^(key): [b]
(Phoneme, Syllable final) IPA^(key): [p̚]

Letter

The second letter of the Malay alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Portuguese

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Portuguese alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Romanian

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/
(letter name) IPA^(key): /be/

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The letter be, the fourth letter of the Romanian alphabet.

Saanich

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /pʼ/

Letter

The fourth letter of the Saanich alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Skolt Sami

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

B ‎(lower case b)

The third letter of the Skolt Sami alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Slovene

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Slovene alphabet, called b or be and written in the Latin script.

Somali

Pronunciation

(phoneme): IPA^(key): /b/
(letter name): IPA^(key): /ba/

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

The second letter of the Somali alphabet, called ba and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

The second letter of the Somali alphabet, which follows Arabic abjad order. It is preceded by ' and followed by T.

Spanish

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Spanish alphabet.

Turkish

Letter

B ‎(upper case, lower case b)

The second letter of the Turkish alphabet, called be and written in the Latin script.

Vietnamese

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ˀɓe˧˧/, /ˀɓe˧˧ ˀɓɔ˨˩/, /ˀɓəːɰ˨˩]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [ˀɓej˧˧/, /ˀɓej˧˧ ˀɓɔ˧˧/, /ˀɓəːɰ˧˧]
(Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ˀɓej˧˥/, /ˀɓej˧˥ ˀɓɔ˨˩/, /ˀɓəːɰ˨˩]
Phonetic: bê, bê bò, bờ

Letter

B ‎(lower case b)

The fourth letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, called bê, bê bò or bờ and written in the Latin script.

b

b	U+0062, b LATIN SMALL LETTER B

← a
[U+0061]

Basic Latin

c →
[U+0063]

See also: B and Appendix:Variations of "b"

Translingual

Etymology

Modification of capital letter B by dropping its upper loop, from the Greek letter Β ‎(B, “Beta”).

Letter

b lower case (upper case B)

The second letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.

Usage notes

The letter b is used in several romanization systems to represent the bilabial plosive or stop, usually voiced (/b/), including Cyrillic б ‎(b, “be”), Zhuyin fuhao ㄅ, and Korean jamo ㅂ ‎(b, “bieup”).

Pronunciation

Symbol

(IPA) voiced bilabial plosive
(physics) beauty quark, bottom quark

English

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/
(letter name) IPA^(key): /biː/
Rhymes: -iː
(letter name) Homophones: be, bee, Bea

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B, plural b's)

The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

In Modern English, the letter b is silent in several words, including climb, and debt.

Number

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The ordinal number second, derived from this letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Etymology 2

Abbreviation

Alternative form of b.

Symbol

(astronomy) latitude in the galactic coordinate system
(physics) barn
(computing) bit
(cricket) bye
(size) big

Derived terms

(computing): Kb , Mb , Gb , Tb , Pb , Eb
(computing): bps , b/s
(cricket): lb

Azeri

Letter

b lower case (upper case B)

The second letter of the Azeri alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Catalan

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /be/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Catalan alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Dutch

Pronunciation

Rhymes: -eː
(letter name): IPA^(key): /beː/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Dutch alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Esperanto

Pronunciation

(letter name): IPA^(key): /bo/
(phoneme): IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Esperanto alphabet, called bo and written in the Latin script.

Faroese

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /p/

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The third letter of the Faroese alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Hungarian

Pronunciation

(phoneme): IPA^(key): [ˈb]
(letter name): IPA^(key): [ˈbeː]

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The third letter of the Hungarian alphabet, called bé and written in the Latin script.

Ido

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The second letter of the Ido alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Italian

Noun

b m, f ‎(invariable)

See under B

Latvian

Etymology

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [b]

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The third letter of the Latvian alphabet, called bē and written in the Latin script.

Livonian

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The fifth letter of the Livonian alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Malay

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Malay alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Norwegian

Pronunciation

(letter name): IPA^(key): /beː/
(phoneme): IPA^(key): /b/
Homophone: be

Letter

The second letter of the Norwegian alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Portuguese alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Romanian

Pronunciation

(letter name): IPA^(key): /be/
(phoneme): IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The fourth letter of the Romanian alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Serbo-Croatian

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(Cyrillic spelling б)

The 2nd letter of the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet (gajica), preceded by a and followed by c.

Skolt Sami

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The third letter of the Skolt Sami alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Slovene

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/
(letter) IPA^(key): /bə/, /beː/
(letter name) IPA^(key): /bə/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Slovene alphabet, called b or be and written in the Latin script.

Noun

b m inan ‎(genitive b-ja, nominative plural b-ji)

The name of the Latin-script letter B/b.

Declension

Declension of b (masculine inan., soft o-stem)

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	b	b-ja	b-ji
accusative	b	b-ja	b-je
genitive	b-ja	b-jev	b-jev
dative	b-ju	b-jema	b-jem
locative	b-ju	b-jih	b-jih
instrumental	b-jem	b-jema	b-ji

Synonyms

Spanish

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/, /β/̞
(letter name) IPA^(key): /be/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Spanish alphabet, called be and written in the Latin script.

Turkish

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/
(letter name) IPA^(key): /beː/

Letter

b ‎(lower case, upper case B)

The second letter of the Turkish alphabet, called be and written in the Latin script.

Turkmen

Pronunciation

(phoneme) IPA^(key): /b/

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The second letter of the Turkmen alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Vietnamese

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ˀɓe˧˧/, /ˀɓe˧˧ ˀɓɔ˨˩/, /ˀɓəːɰ˨˩]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [ˀɓej˧˧/, /ˀɓej˧˧ ˀɓɔ˧˧/, /ˀɓəːɰ˧˧]
(Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ˀɓej˧˥/, /ˀɓej˧˥ ˀɓɔ˨˩/, /ˀɓəːɰ˨˩]
Phonetic: bê, bê bò, bờ

Letter

b ‎(upper case B)

The fourth letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, called bê, bê bò or bờ and written in the Latin script.