Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

H

H

(āch)
,
the eighth letter of the English alphabet, is classed among the consonants, and is formed with the mouth organs in the same position as that of the succeeding vowel. It is used with certain consonants to form digraphs representing sounds which are not found in the alphabet, as sh, th, th, as in shall, thing, thine (for zh see §274); also, to modify the sounds of some other letters, as when placed after c and p, with the former of which it represents a compound sound like that of tsh, as in charm (written also tch as in catch), with the latter, the sound of f, as in phase, phantom. In some words, mostly derived or introduced from foreign languages, h following c and g indicates that those consonants have the hard sound before e, i, and y, as in chemistry, chiromancy, chyle, Ghent, Ghibelline, etc.; in some others, ch has the sound of sh, as in chicane. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 153, 179, 181-3, 237-8.
The name (aitch) is from the French ache; its form is from the Latin, and this from the Greek H, which was used as the sign of the spiritus asper (rough breathing) before it came to represent the long vowel, Gr. η. The Greek H is from Phœnician, the ultimate origin probably being Egyptian. Etymologically H is most closely related to c; as in E. horn, L. cornu, Gr.
κέρας
; E. hele,
Verb.
T.
, conceal; E. hide, L. cutis, Gr.
κύτος
; E. hundred, L. centum, Gr.
ἑ-κατ-ον
, Skr. c̣ata.
H piece
(Mining)
,
the part of a plunger pump which contains the valve.

H

(hä)
.
(Mus.)
The seventh degree in the diatonic scale, being used by the Germans for B natural. See
B
.

Webster 1828 Edition

H

H

, is the eighth letter of the English Alphabet. It is properly the representative of the Chaldee, Syriac and Hebrew, which is the eighth letter in those alphabets. Its form is the same as the Greek H eta. It is not strictly a vowel, nor an articulation; but the mark of a stronger breathing, than that which precedes the utterance of any other letter. It is pronounced with an expiration of breath, which, preceding a vowel, is perceptible by the ear at a considerable distance. Thus, harm and arm, hear and ear, heat and eat, are distinguished at almost any distance at which the voice can be heard. H is a letter sui generis, but as useful in forming and distinguishing words as any other.
In our mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon, and other Teutonic dialects, h sometimes represents the L. c, and the Gr.x; as in horn, L. cornu, Gr. to hide; G. haut, Sw. hud, D. huid, Dan.hud, L. cutis; Sax. hlinian, L. clino, Gr. to lean; L. celo, to conceal, Sax. helan. G. hehlen, Dan. haeler. In Latin h sometimes represents the Greek x; as in halo, Gr. hio. In the modern European languages, it represents other guttural letters.
In English, h is sometimes mute, as in honor, honest; also when united with g, as in right, fight, brought. In which, what, who, whom, and some other words in which it follows w, it is pronounced before it, hwich, hwat, &c. As a numeral in Latin, H denotes 200, and with a dash over it 200,000. As an abbreviation in Latin, H stands for homo, haeres, hora, &c.

Definition 2024

H

H


H U+0048, H
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H
← G
[U+0047] 		Basic Latin I →
[U+0049]
See also: Appendix:Variations of "h" and ㅐ

Translingual

Letter

H upper case (lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.

See also

Symbol

H

  1. (chemistry) Symbol for hydrogen.
  2. (physics) Symbol for a henry, a unit for measurement of electrical inductance in the International System of Units.
  3. (biochemistry) IUPAC 1-letter abbreviation for histidine
  4. (mathematics) Homology group or cohomology group

Usage notes

  • (in mathematics) An H with a numerical (or variable) superscript denotes a homology group; with a subscript, it denotes a cohomology group.

See also

Other representations of H:

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /eɪtʃ/
  • (non-standard) IPA(key): /heɪtʃ/
  • Rhymes: -eɪtʃ

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h, plural Hs or H's)

  1. The eighth letter of the English alphabet, called aitch and written in the Latin script.
Derived terms
See also

Number

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The ordinal number eighth, derived from this letter of the English alphabet, called aitch and written in the Latin script.

Etymology 2

Noun

H ‎(uncountable)

  1. (slang) A street term for heroin.
  2. (baseball) Hits, the number of hits by a given batter in a given season.
  3. (Britain) A grade of pencil with lead that makes lighter marks than a pencil grade HB but darker marks than a pencil of grade 2H; a pencil with hard lead.
  4. Hentai.
  5. (journalism) Half-year.
    We expect the amendment to enter into force in H2 2013.

Abbreviation

H

  1. (linguistics) high (variety of a language that enjoys prestige and official acceptance)
    an H variety

American Sign Language

Letter

‎(Stokoe H)

  1. The letter H

Azeri

Letter

H upper case (lower case h)

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

See also

Czech

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /haː/

Noun

H n

  1. H (the 10th letter in the Czech alphabet)
  2. (music): B

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /ɦaː/

Letter

H ‎(capital, lowercase h)

  1. The eighth letter of the Dutch alphabet.

See also

  • Previous letter: G
  • Next letter: I

Esperanto

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /ho/
  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The tenth letter of the Esperanto alphabet, called ho and written in the Latin script.

See also

Finnish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /hoː/

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the Finnish alphabet, called hoo and written in the Latin script.

See also

Noun

H

  1. (music) B

German

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /haː/
  • Rhymes: -aː

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the German alphabet.

Noun

H n ‎(genitive H, no plural)

  1. (music) B

Declension

See also

  • B ‎(“B-flat”)

Ido

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /h/

Letter

H ‎(lower case h)

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

See also

Italian

Pronunciation

  • (name of letter) IPA(key): /ˈakka/
  • (phoneme) IPA(key): ∅ (silent)

Letter

H f ‎(invariable, lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the Italian alphabet, called acca and written in the Latin script.

See also

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): [x]

Letter

H

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The twelfth letter of the Latvian alphabet, called hā and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

The letter H/h (like F/f, and O/o representing [o], [oː] instead of [uə̯]) is found only in words of foreign origin (borrowings). Note that it represents the sound of IPA [x] (like German machen, ach), not (as in most other alphabets based on the Latin script) the sound of IPA [h].

See also

Malay

Pronunciation

  • (Name of letter) IPA(key): [et͡ʃ], [het͡ʃ]
  • (Phoneme) IPA(key): [h]

Letter

H

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

See also

Norwegian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /hoː/

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the Norwegian alphabet.

Portuguese

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

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

See also

Romanian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ha/, /haʃ/

Letter

H (capital, lowercase h)

  1. The tenth letter of the Romanian alphabet representing the phoneme /h/. Preceded by G and followed by I.

Saanich

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /h/

Letter

H

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

See also

Skolt Sami

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /x/, /h/

Letter

H ‎(lower case h)

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

See also

Slovene

Letter

H ‎(capital, lowercase h)

  1. The 9th letter of the Slovene alphabet. Preceded by G and followed by I.

Somali

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/
  • (letter name): IPA(key): /hæ/

Letter

H upper case (lower case h)

  1. The twenty-first letter of the Somali alphabet, called ha and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

  1. The twenty-first letter of the Somali alphabet, which follows Arabic abjad order. It is preceded by W and followed by Y.

See also

Spanish

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The eighth letter of the Spanish alphabet.

Turkish

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The tenth letter of the Turkish alphabet, called he and written in the Latin script.

See also

Vietnamese

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [hɐʔt̚˧ˀ˦/, /haːʔt̚˧ˀ˦/, /həːɰ˨˩]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [hɐʔk̚˦˥/, /haːʔk̚˦˥/, /həːɰ˧˧]
  • (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA(key): [hɐʔk̚˦ˀ˥/, /haːʔk̚˦ˀ˥/, /həːɰ˨˩]
  • Phonetic: hắt, hát, hờ

Letter

H ‎(upper case, lower case h)

  1. The eleventh letter of the Vietnamese alphabet, called hắt, hát or hờ and written in the Latin script.

See also

h

h


h U+0068, h
LATIN SMALL LETTER H
← g
[U+0067] 		Basic Latin i →
[U+0069]
See also: Appendix:Variations of "h"

Translingual

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɑː/, /h/

Letter

h lower case (upper case H)

  1. The eighth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.

See also

Pronunciation

Symbol

h

  1. (IPA) voiceless glottal fricative.
  2. Planck's constant

See also

Other representations of H:

English

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /eɪtʃ/
  • (letter name): (non-standard) IPA(key): /heɪtʃ/
  • (letter name): (in Hiberno-English) IPA(key): [he:tʃ]
  • (letter name): (in Australian English) IPA(key): [hæɪtʃ]
  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/, silent

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H, plural h's)

  1. The eighth letter of the English alphabet, called aitch and written in the Latin script.
See also

Number

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

  1. The ordinal number eighth, derived from this letter of the English alphabet, called aitch and written in the Latin script.

Etymology 2

Initialism

h

  1. (sciences) abbreviation for hour (particularly when used as a (non-SI) unit of time alongside International System of Units (SI) units)
    • 1908, Francis Ernest Lloyd, The Physiology of Stomata (Carnegie Institution of Washington), page 83:
      Another instance: 2h28m p. m., 10 micra; 3h08m p. m., 0 micra; irrigated with water: 3h09m p. m., 4 micra.
  2. (baseball) the statistic reporting the number of hits by a player
  3. (slang) heroin
  4. (computing) hexadecimal (following a number)
    • 1989, PC: The Independent Guide to IBM Personal Computers
      If any of the video buffer's background attribute bits are on, MONO converts the attribute to 70h (inverse video).
    • 1994, Jan Axelson, The microcontroller idea book (page 47)
      The commands assume that the NV memory is addressed beginning at 8000h in external data memory.
Homographs

Azeri

Letter

h lower case (upper case H)

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

See also

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -aː
  • (letter name): IPA(key): /ɦaː/

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

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

See also

Esperanto

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /ho/
  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

  1. The tenth letter of the Esperanto alphabet, called ho and written in the Latin script.

See also

Faroese

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /h/

Letter

h ‎(upper case H)

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

See also

German

Pronunciation

  • Rhymes: -aː

Initialism

h

  1. (common, not restricted to scientific usage) hour
    15:30 h (read out as: fünfzehn Uhr dreißig, or: halb vier)
    3:30 p.m.

Hungarian

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): [ˈhaː]

Conjunction

h

  1. (text messaging, informal) abbreviation of conjunction hogy ‎(“that”)

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

  1. The fourteenth letter of the Hungarian alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

Ido

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /h/

Letter

h ‎(upper case H)

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

See also

Italian

Noun

h m, f ‎(invariable)

  1. See under H

See also

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): [x]

Letter

H

h ‎(upper case F, lower case f)

  1. The twelfth letter of the Latvian alphabet, called hā and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

The letter H/h (like F/f, and O/o representing [o], [oː] instead of [uə̯]) is found only in words of foreign origin (borrowings). Note that it represents the sound of IPA [x] (like German machen, ach), not (as in most other alphabets based on the Latin script) the sound of IPA [h].

See also

Livonian

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /x/

Letter

h ‎(upper case H)

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

See also

Malay

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

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

See also

Norwegian

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /hɔː/
  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/

Letter

h

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

Usage notes

  • When written before j, the h becomes silent.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

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

See also

Romanian

Pronunciation

  • (letter name): IPA(key): /ha/, /haʃ/
  • (phoneme): IPA(key): /h/

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

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

See also

Serbo-Croatian

Alternative forms

  • (uppercase) H

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /x/

Letter

h ‎(Cyrillic spelling х)

  1. The 12th letter of the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet (gajica), preceded by g and followed by i.

Skolt Sami

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /x/, /h/

Letter

h ‎(upper case H)

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

See also

Spanish

Pronunciation

  • (letter name):IPA(key): /ˈa.tʃe/

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

  1. The eighth letter of the Spanish alphabet, written in the Latin script.

Turkish

Letter

h ‎(lower case, upper case H)

  1. The tenth letter of the Turkish alphabet, called he and written in the Latin script.

See also

Turkmen

Pronunciation

  • (phoneme) IPA(key): /h~x/

Letter

h ‎(upper case H)

  1. The ninth letter of the Turkmen alphabet, called he and written in the Latin script.

See also

Etymology

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