e

1. The fifth letter of the modern English alphabet.
2. Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter e.
3. The fifth in a series.
4. Something shaped like the letter E.
5. E A grade that indicates failing status.
6. Music.
   1. The third tone in the scale of C major or the fifth tone in the relative minor scale.
   2. A key or scale in which E is the tonic.
   3. A written or printed note representing this tone.
   4. A string, key, or pipe tuned to the pitch of this tone.
7. e Mathematics. The base of the natural system of logarithms, having a numerical value of approximately 2.71828.
8. E The hypothesized traditional source of those narrative portions of the Pentateuch in which God is referred to as Elohim rather than with the Tetragrammaton.

[Sense 8, from ELOHIM.]

(Metric) As an upper-case prefix, E, see exa-, e.g. Eg = exagram.

mathematics As E, initial letter of exponent, see floating-point number. As e, the base of ‘natural’ logarithms (compare common logarithms). More definitively, the unique transcendental number such that the derivative of the function e^x relative to x is identically e^x, hence likewise the integral. Expressed in simple graphical terms, the uniqueness is that the graph of e^x is identically the graph of its own slope values, and of its own accumulating area covered. A precise valuation is given by the series

sub-atomic physics As e, see elementary charge.

informatics In hexadecimal notation as E for 14, the 5th digit after 9. For use such as 0.9876E+12, see floating-point number.

music See pitch.

The fifth letter of the modern English alphabet is represented by edad, [aspen] in the ogham alphabet of early Ireland; edad is the fourth vowel in ogham.

Symbol, exa-; electromotive force; eye.

The key of E.

For technical reasons, E# redirects here. For the musical note, see E (musical note).

For other uses of "E", see E (disambiguation).

Look up E or e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Basic Latin alphabet
	Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English (pronounced /iː/) is spelled e; the plural is ees, though this is rare.^[1] The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech,^[2] Danish,^[2] Dutch,^[2] English,^[3] French,^[4] German,^[5] Hungarian,^[2] Latin,^[2] Norwegian,^[2] Spanish,^[6] and Swedish languages.^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 Usage 3 Codes for computing 4 See also 5 References

History

Egyptian hieroglyph E’	Proto-Semitic H	Phoenician H	Etruscan E	Greek Epsilon	Roman/Cyrillic E

E is derived from the Greek letter epsilon which is much the same in appearance (Ε, ε) and function. In etymology, the Semitic hê probably first represented a praying or calling human figure (hillul jubilation), and was probably based on a similar Egyptian hieroglyph that was pronounced and used quite differently. In Semitic, the letter represented /h/ (and /e/ in foreign words), in Greek hê became Εψιλον (Epsilon) with the value /e/. Etruscans and Romans followed this usage. Arising from the Great Vowel Shift, English usage is rather different, namely /iː/ (derived from /eː/ in "me" or "bee") whereas other words like "bed" are closer to Latin and other languages in usage.

Usage

Like other Latin vowels, E came in a long and a short variety. Originally, the only difference was in length but later on, short e represented /ɛ/. In other languages that use the letter E or e, it represents various other phonetic values, sometimes with accents to indicate contrasts (e ê é è ë ē ĕ ě ẽ ė ẹ ę ẻ).

Digraphs starting with E are common in many languages to indicate diphthongs and monophthongs, such as EA or EE for /iː/ or /eɪ/ in English, EI for /aɪ/ in German, or EU for /ø/ in French or /ɔɪ/ in German.

At the end of a word, E is very often silent in English (silent e), where old noun inflections have been dropped, although even when silent at the end of a word, it often causes vowels in the word to be pronounced as diphthongs, conventionally called long vowels (compare as a noun rat and as a verb rate).

The letter 'E' is the most common (or highest frequency) letter in the English language (starting off the typographer's phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU) and many other related languages, which has implications in both cryptography and data compression. This makes it a difficult and popular letter to use when writing lipograms. Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby (1939), is considered a "dreadful" novel, and that "at least part of Wright's narrative difficulties were caused by language restrictions imposed by the lack of E."^[7] Both Georges Perec's novel A Void (La Disparition) (1969) and its English translation by Gilbert Adair omit the letter E and are considered better works.^[8]

Codes for computing

Alternative representations of E

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Echo	·

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	Braille

In Unicode the capital E is codepoint U+0045 and the lower case e is U+0065.

The ASCII code for capital E is 69 and for lower case e is 101; or in binary 01000101 and 01100101, respectively.

The EBCDIC code for capital E is 197 and for lowercase e is 133.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "E" and "e" for upper and lower case, respectively.

In British Sign Language (BSL), the letter 'e' is represented as extended index of right hand touching the tip of index on the left hand. All fingers of left hand should be open.

See also

See E (disambiguation) for uses of the letter E

Similar Latin letters: Ɛɛ : Latin epsilon Similar non-Latin letters: Εε : Greek epsilon Ее : Cyrillic Ye/E Ёё : Cyrillic Yo Єє : Ukrainian Ye Ээ : Cyrillic backwards E

Similar phonetic symbols: e : Close-mid front unrounded vowel ɛ : Open-mid front unrounded vowel Special symbols similar to the letter E: ℮ : Estimated sign (used on prepackaged goods for sale within the European Union). € : Euro sign

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: E

References

1. ^ "E" Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993). Ees is the plural of the name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is E's, Es, e's, or es.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Kelk, Brian. "Letter frequencies". UK Free Software Network. http://www.bckelk.ukfsn.org/words/etaoin.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-25. 
3. ^ Lewand, Robert. "Relative Frequencies of Letters in General English Plain text". Cryptographical Mathematics. Central College. http://pages.central.edu/emp/LintonT/classes/spring01/cryptography/letterfreq.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-25. 
4. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in French". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqfr.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-06-25. 
5. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in German". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. http://scplweb.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqger.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-06-25. 
6. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in Spanish". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/ltfrqsp.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-06-25. 
7. ^ Ross Eckler, Making the Alphabet Dance: Recreational Word Play. New York: St. Martin's Press (1996): 3
8. ^ Eckler (1996): 3. Perec's novel "was so well written that at least some reviewers never realized the existence of a letter constraint."

The Basic modern Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter E with diacritics ÉéÈèĔĕÊêẾếỀềỄễỂểĚěËëẼẽĖėȨȩḜḝĘęĒēḖḗḔḕẺẻȄȅȆȇẸẹỆệḘḙḚḛɆɇᶒⱸ Two-letter combinations Ea Eb Ec Ed Ee Ef Eg Eh Ei Ej Ek El Em En Eo Ep Eq Er Es Et Eu Ev Ew Ex Ey Ez EA EB EC ED EE EF EG EH EI EJ EK EL EM EN EO EP EQ ER ES ET EU EV EW EX EY EZ Letter-digit & Digit-letter combinations     E0 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9     0E 1E 2E 3E 4E 5E 6E 7E 8E 9E     history • palaeography • derivations • diacritics • punctuation • numerals • Unicode • list of letters • ISO/IEC 646

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Dansk (Danish)
abbr. - jord, øst, østlig, ægyptisk, engelsk, ingeniør, E-nummer

idioms:

• e number    E-nummer

Nederlands (Dutch)
laag cijfer voor student, e (grondtal van natuurlijke logaritme), E-snaar

Français (French)
abbr. - (abrév = Earl) Comte (titre de noblesse)
n. - E (cinquième lettre de l'alphabet), (Mus) mi, (École) E faible
symb. - code E, additif alimentaire

idioms:

• e number    code E, additif alimentaire

Deutsch (German)
n. - E (dritte Note in C-Dur), Note Fünf, der Fünfte
symb. - Energie, Elektron
abbr. - Ost

idioms:

• e number    Code-Nummer, die mit E anfängt, für Nahrungsmittelzusätze

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - το πέμπτο γράμμα του αγγλικού αλφαβήτου
symb. - ενέργεια
abbr. - Ανατολή, ανατολικός

idioms:

• e number    αριθμός Ε (πρόσθετης ουσίας)

Italiano (Italian)
E, mi, quinto

idioms:

• e number    additivo del cibo

Português (Portuguese)
n. - E (m) quinta letra do alfabeto
symb. - elétron (Fís.)

idioms:

• e number    número colocado em alimentos nos EUA

Русский (Russian)
5-я буква англ. алфавита, нота ми, оценка "неудовлетво- рительно", пятый

idioms:

• e number    номер 5

Español (Spanish)
abbr. - este, oriental, inglés, excelente, vía rápida
n. - quinta letra del alfabeto inglés, cualquier sonido hablado que se representa con la letra e, algo que tiene la forma de la letra e, un dispositivo (de una máquina de escribir) para reproducir la letra e
symb. - el quinto en orden o en una serie, calificación que muestra que el alumno necesita esforzarse un poco más para llegar al aceptable, (mús) tercera nota en la escala de C mayor, o quinta nota en la escala de A menor, (mús) un instrumento afinado en esta nota, (mus) una nota escrita o impresa que representa ese sonido, (mús) mi, el numeral romano para 250

idioms:

• e number    número base de logaritmo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - E (bokstav el. ton)
symb. - eko (radio)
abbr. - earl, east, Eastern (postdistrikt i London), energy (fys.), Europe, European

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
欧拉常数

idioms:

• e number    E数

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
abbr. - 歐拉常數

idioms:

• e number    E數

한국어 (Korean)
abbr. - East (동쪽), Earth (지구), English (영어), Elohistic Source (엘로힘 자료)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - イー, E字形のもの, 条件付き可, ホ音, ホ調

idioms:

• e number    食品添加物のコード番号

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نوته موسيقيه, الحرف الخامس من الحروف الأبجديه (علامه) مختصر : الشرق East , أنكليزي English , مصر أو مصري Egyptian , طاقه ( فيزياء Energy ) (اختصار) مختصر : هندسه, مخدر اسمه أكستسي‏

עברית (Hebrew)
abbr. - ‮מזרח, מזרחי, מי (צליל), אנרגיה (פיסיקה), מצרי‬

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