Dictionary of Meaning
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K
*** Shopping-Tip: K
:''For the
Arthurian character named Kay, see
Sir Kay.''
{{AZ|uc=K|lc=k}}
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;text-align:center;"
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! Egyptian hieroglyph D
! Proto-Semitic K
! Phoenician K
! Etruscan K
! Greek K
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d
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Image:Proto-semiticK-01.png
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Image:PhoenicianK-01.png
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Image:GreekK-01.png
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The eleventh letter of the Latin
alphabet, '''K''', or '''k''' comes from the Greek
Kappa (letter) Κ or
Kappa (letter) κ (Kappa) developed from the Semitic Kap, symbol for an open hand. This in turn was likely adapted by Semites who had lived in Egypt, from the hieroglyph for "hand" representing D for the Egyptian word for hand, ''d-r-t''. The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value K instead, because their word for hand started with that sound.
This Semitic sound value /k/ was maintained in most classic as well as modern languages, although Latin abandoned the use of K almost completely, preferring
C. When
Greek language Greek words were taken into Latin, the Kappa was converted to C. Some words from other alphabets were also transliterated into C. Therefore, the
Romance languages have K only in words from still other language groups.
Some English linguists prefer to reverse the Latin transliteration process for proper names in Greek, spelling ''Ceres'' as "Keres", for example. And the writing down of languages that don't have their own alphabet with the Latin one has resulted in a standardization of the letter K for this sound, as in ''Kwakiutl.''
Its name in
English language English is ''kay''.
In English, it is generally pronounced with the /k/ sound, but is silent when followed by an ''n'', in words like ''knowledge''.
In the
International phonetic alphabet, [k] is the symbol for the
voiceless velar plosive. Several languages use characters with sharp angles to indicate the sound /k/ or syllables that start with a /k/, for example:
Kana Japanese ã??,
Arabic_alphabet Arabic ï®?,
Hebrew_alphabet Hebrew ך (in some fonts),
Hangul Korean 기. However, there are also many examples of rounded letters for /k/, like ค in
Thai_alphabet Thai or Ô³ in
Armenian_alphabet Armenian.
Codes for computing
{{Letter
|NATO=Kilo
|Morse=–·–
|B1=â—?
|B2=â—‹
|B3=â—?
|B4=â—‹
|B5=â—‹
|B6=â—‹
}}
In
Unicode the
majuscule capital K is codepoint U+004B and the
minuscule lowercase k is U+006B.
The
ASCII code for capital K is 75 and for lowercase k is 107; or in
Binary numeral system binary 01001011 and 01101011, correspondingly.
The
EBCDIC code for capital K is 210, and for lowercase k, 146.
The
numeric character references in
HTML and
XML are "
K" and "
k" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for K
* In
accounting and
investment bank investment banking, K = 1000 (similar to the use in the SI system below).
* In
astronomy,
** K stands for a May 16 through 31 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g.
C/1881 K1, the Great Comet of 1881) or asteroid (e.g. {{mpl|(5289) 1990 KG|2}}).
* In
baseball, K is the abbreviation for a swinging
strikeout. (A backwards K is the symbol for a "looking" strikeout in
baseball scorekeeping.)
* In
biochemistry, K is the symbol for the
amino acid lysine.
* In
Boolean algebra, a K-map is an abbreviation for a
Karnaugh map.
* In
chemistry,
**K is the symbol for
potassium (from its
Latin name kalium).
**''K'' is the symbol for the
equilibrium constant.
**''k'' is the symbol for the
reaction rate constant.
* In
chess, K is a notation symbol for the
King_(chess) king piece.
* In the
CMYK color model, K stands for the color
black.
* In
commerce, a circled K, {{unicode|Ⓚ}}, on a food product indicates
kosher certification.
* In
combinatory logic of
computer science, K is the name of a fundamental combinator, the constant function.
* In
computing,
** K is a
binary prefix meaning 2
10 = 1,024 (compare with use as a prefix in the SI system below).
** K is an obsolete abbreviation for
kilobyte (now kB or KB)
** K also refers to the
K programming language.
* In
Discordianism, a circled K, {{unicode|Ⓚ}}, indicates the material is
Kopyleft
* In
economics, K is the abbreviation for
income.
* In
education, K is the abbreviation for
kindergarten, as in
K-12.
* In
engineering, K is an abbreviation denoting a
kip (unit) kip (1k = 1000 pound force).
* In
English language English slang, K is an abbreviation for
ketamine.
* In
finance, K is the
New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol for the
Kellogg Company.
* In
Hong Kong slang, K is the abbreviation for
karaoke.
* In
gold, K is the abbreviation for
Carat (purity) karat (in the American spelling).
* In
List of international license plate codes international license plate codes, K stands for
Cambodia.
* In
internet slang, K stands for
okay.
* In
law, K is a common abbreviation for
contract.
* In
library science, K is the
Library of Congress classification designation for books about
law.
* In
logic, K is the simplest system of
modal logic (K stands for "Kripke").
* In
mathematics, ''K''
''n'' denotes the
complete graph on ''n'' vertices.
* In
music, K. numbers identify the compositions of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the catalog compiled by
Ludwig von Köchel (sometimes abbreviated K.V., standing for ''
Köchel-Verzeichnis''). K. numbers are also used to identify the compositions of
Domenico Scarlatti in the catalog compiled by
Ralph Kirkpatrick. ''
K_(album) K'' is also an album by
Kula Shaker.
* In
nutrition, K is a
vitamin which is essential in
coagulation blood coagulation (or, as it is known in
German language German, ''koagulation'', thus the name).
* In
physics,
**''k'' is the symbol for the
Boltzmann constant.
**''k'' is the symbol for the
spring (device) spring constant in
Hooke's law.
**''k'' is the symbol for
Wavenumber.
* In a deck of
playing cards, the letter K is used to mark each of the
king (playing card) kings.
*In
politics, K refers to the
Centre Party (Finland) Keskustapuolue (
Centre Party (Finland) Centre Party of
Finland).
* K can be short for the record label
K Records.
* As the first letter of a
postal code,
** In
Canada, K stands for
Eastern Ontario.
* In
radio communication
**K is one of the
ITU prefixes allocated to the
United States. K is generally used as the first letter of
radio call sign callsigns allocated to
broadcasting broadcast television station television or
radio stations west of the
Mississippi river.
**As a procedural signal, K means "go ahead" or "over".
* In semiconductors, electronics, and physics, it is the symbol for the dielectric constant. See
Low-K.
* In the
SI system (the metric system),
**k is an
SI prefix denoting 10
3 = 1,000 (
one thousand). Consequently, the letter K can be used in spoken conversation to mean "thousand". Compare with use as a binary prefix in computing above. In the case of money, the notation $12k is used for $12,000, not k$12 or 12 k$.
**K is the symbol for the
SI base unit for temperature, the
kelvin.
*In
World War II, K was the designation for
Japanese Navy trainer aircraft.
*In the work of
Franz Kafka, the protagonist of ''
The Trial'' is called ''Joseph K.'', and the protagonist of ''
The Castle'' is called simply ''K.''
*K is usually the beginning letter in Applications designed for
KDE, usually due to a deliberate misspelling (ex Konsole)
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*** Shopping-Tip: K
