Translingual

Symbol

J

1. (metrology) The symbol for joule, the unit of work or energy in the International System of Units

Letter

J (uppercase, lowercase j)

1. The tenth letter of the English alphabet, preceded by I and followed by K.

Noun

Singular J

Plural Js or J's

J (plural Js or J's)

1. The tenth letter of the English alphabet.
2. (slang) A term for a marijuana cigarette ('joint').

   I stepped outside to smoke myself a J. — Paul Simon, from the song "Late in the Evening"

J is the tenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added. Its name in English (pronounced /dʒeɪ/) is spelled jay. It was formerly jy (from French ji), and still is in some dialects, mainly in Scottish English, where it is (pronounced /dʒaɪ/).

History

J was originally used as a swash character to end some Roman numerals in place of i. There was an emerging distinctive use in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478-1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana ("Trissino's epistle about the letters recently added in the Italian language") of 1524. Originally, both I and J represented /i/, /iː/, and /j/; but Romance languages developed new sounds (from former /j/ and /ɡ/) that came to be represented as I and J; therefore, English J (from French J) has a sound value quite different from /j/ (which represents the sound in the English word "yet").

[ A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z ]

• Jerome@ (24)
• John Cassian@ (8)
• John Chrysostom@ (33)

• John of Damascus@ (18)
• Jonas, Justus@ (1)
• Justin Martyr@ (25)