M

M
M
M m
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin	Latin language
Phonetic usage	[ m ] ; [ ? ] ; [ n ] ; [ n? ] ; / ? m /
Unicode codepoint	U+004D, U+006D
Alphabetical position	13 ; Numerical value: 1000
History
Development	Μ μ ?? M m ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• ? ; • ™ ; • ? ; • ? ; • ? ; • ? ? ? ; • ? ; • ?
Sisters	М ; ? ; ? ; ? ; ? ; ? ; ?? ; ? ; ; ? ; ? ; ??
Other
Other letters commonly used with	m(x)
Associated numbers	1000
Writing direction	Left-to-Right
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) . For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA . For the distinction between [ ] , / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters .

M , or m , is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet , used in the modern English alphabet , the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em (pronounced / ? ? m / ), plural ems . ^[1]

History

Egyptian hieroglyph
"n"

Phoenician
Mem

Western Greek
Mu

Etruscan
M

Latin
M

The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem , via the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a " Proto-Sinaitic " ( Bronze Age ) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing . The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value /n/ , from the Egyptian word for "water", nt ; the adoption as the Semitic letter for /m/ was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", *m?(y)- . ^[2]

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨m⟩ by language
Orthography	Phonemes
Standard Chinese ( Pinyin )	/ m /
English	/ m / , silent
French	/ m /
German	/ m /
Portuguese	/ m / , silent
Spanish	/ m /
Turkish	/ m /

English

In English , ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal /m/ .

The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that ⟨m⟩ is sometimes a vowel , in words like spasm and in the suffix -ism . In modern terminology, this is described as a syllabic consonant (IPA /m?/ ).

M is the fourteenth most frequently used letter in the English language.

Other languages

The letter ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal /m/ in the orthography of Latin as well as in those of many modern languages .

In Washo , lower-case ⟨m⟩ represents a voiced bilabial nasal /m/ , while upper-case ⟨M⟩ represents a voiceless bilabial nasal /m?/ .

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet , ⟨m⟩ represents the voiced bilabial nasal /m/ .

Other uses

Styled letter M in the coat of arms of Miehikkala

The Roman numeral M represents the number 1000 , though it was not used in Roman times. There is, however, scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A.D. by the Romans. ^[3]
Unit prefix M (mega), meaning one million times, and m (milli) meaning one-thousandth. ^[4]^[5]
m is the standard abbreviation for metre (or meter) in the International System of Units (SI). ^[4] However, m is also used as an abbreviation for mile . ^[5]
M is used as the unit abbreviation for molarity . ^[4]
With money amounts, m or M can mean one million: For example, $5m is five million dollars. ^[4]^[5]
M often represents male or masculine, especially in conjunction with F for female or feminine. ^[4]^[5]
M (James Bond) is a fictional character in Ian Fleming 's James Bond book and film series.
In typography, an em dash is a punctuation symbol whose width is equal to that of a capital letter M.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

M with diacritics : ? ? ? ? ? ? M? m? ? ^[6]
IPA -specific symbols related to M: ? ?
? : Capital M with hook
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet -specific symbols related to M: ^[7]
- U+1D0D ᴍ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL M
- U+1D1F ᴟ LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS TURNED M
- U+1D39 ᴹ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL M
- U+1D50 ᵐ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M
- U+1D5A ᵚ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED M
Some symbols related to M were used by the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902: ^[8]
- U+2098 ₘ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER M
- U+A7FA ꟺ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED M
The Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses U+AB3A ꬺ LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH CROSSED-TAIL ^[9]
Other variations used for phonetic transcription: ^[10] ? ? ?
? ? : Turned M
? : Inverted M was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for mulier (woman) ^[11]
? : Archaic M was used in ancient Roman texts to abbreviate the personal name 'Manius' (A regular capital M was used for the more common personal name 'Marcus') ^[11]
? : currency symbol for Mark

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

?? : Semitic letter Mem , from which the following symbols originally derive
- Μ μ : Greek letter Mu , from which M derives
  - ? ? : Coptic letter Me, which derives from Greek Mu
  - М м : Cyrillic letter Em , also derived from Mu
  - ?? : Old Italic M, which derives from Greek Mu, and is the ancestor of modern Latin M
    - ? : Runic letter Mannaz , which derives from old Italic M
  - ?? : Gothic letter manna, which derives from Greek Mu

Ligatures and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Character information
Preview	M		m		Ｍ		ｍ
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M		LATIN SMALL LETTER M		FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M		FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER M
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	77	U+004D	109	U+006D	65325	U+FF2D	65357	U+FF4D
UTF-8	77	4D	109	6D	239 188 173	EF BC AD	239 189 141	EF BD 8D
Numeric character reference	M	M	m	m	Ｍ	Ｍ	ｍ	ｍ
EBCDIC family	212	D4	148	94
ASCII ¹	77	4D	109	6D

¹ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Mike	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ^ⓘ


Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet ( ASL fingerspelling )	British manual alphabet ( BSL fingerspelling )	Braille dots-134 Unified English Braille

References

^ "M" Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster 's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "em," op. cit.
^ See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic ? Progenitor of the Alphabet" Rosetta 9 (2011): Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38) Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39), Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" ( fig. 1 Archived 2016-07-03 at the Wayback Machine ).
^ Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy . University of California Press . pp. 45 . ISBN 9780520038981 . Retrieved 3 October 2015 . roman numerals.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "What does M stand for?" . The Free Dictionary . Archived from the original on 25 November 2020 . Retrieved 9 February 2021 .
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "M definition and meaning" . Collins English Dictionary . Archived from the original on 27 February 2021 . Retrieved 9 February 2021 .
^ Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Everson, Michael ; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .
^ ^a ^b Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

External links

Media related to M at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of M at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of m at Wiktionary

[1] "M" Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster 's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "em," op. cit.

[2] See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic ? Progenitor of the Alphabet" Rosetta 9 (2011): Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38) Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39), Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" ( fig. 1 Archived 2016-07-03 at the Wayback Machine ).

[3] Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy . University of California Press . pp. 45 . ISBN 9780520038981 . Retrieved 3 October 2015 . roman numerals.

[freedict-4] "What does M stand for?" . The Free Dictionary . Archived from the original on 25 November 2020 . Retrieved 9 February 2021 .

[collins-5] "M definition and meaning" . Collins English Dictionary . Archived from the original on 27 February 2021 . Retrieved 9 February 2021 .

[6] Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

[7] Everson, Michael ; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

[8] Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

[9] Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

[10] Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

[L206269-11] Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF) . Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14 . Retrieved 2018-03-24 .

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