Tse

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Look up Ц or ц in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Cyrillic letter Tse
Cyrillic numerals: 900
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0426
minuscule: U+0446
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ђ
Ѓ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ҕ
Ӻ	Ӷ	Ԁ	Ԃ	Ӗ	Ӂ	Җ
Ӝ	Ԅ	Ҙ	Ӟ	Ԑ	Ӡ	Ԇ
Ӣ	Ҋ	Ӥ	Қ	Ӄ	Ҡ	Ҟ
Ҝ	Ԟ	Ԛ	Ӆ	Ԓ	Ԡ	Ԉ
Ԕ	Ӎ	Ӊ	Ң	Ӈ	Ҥ	Ԣ
Ԋ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ	Ҩ	Ҧ	Ҏ
Ԗ	Ҫ	Ԍ	Ҭ	Ԏ	Ӯ	Ӱ
Ӳ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Ӽ	Ӿ	Һ
Ҵ	Ҷ	Ӵ	Ӌ	Ҹ	Ҽ	Ҿ
Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ	Ԙ	Ԝ	Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѻ	ОУ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѣ	Ꙓ
Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ
Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters
Cyrillic digraphs

Tse or Ce, (Ц, ц) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks somewhat like U with square corners and a "pig tail" on the bottom right. It represents a voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/, like the ts in "cats."

It is the 23rd letter of the Russian alphabet, and is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Tsadi (צ) (Arabic: Ṣād ص‎), via the Glagolitic letter Tsi ().

Usage in Russian

It is used both in native Slavic words and borrowed words: as a match for the Latin <C> in words of Latin origin, for example цирк (circus), центр (center); and for the German <Z> in words borrowed from German, for example плац (Platz), цинк (Zink).

Russian words starting with ц, such as tsar, are rare, and very few of them are of Slavic origin.

A notable rule of Russian orthography is that <ц> is seldom followed by 'ы', with the exception of the ending -ы of the plural number (танец–танцы) and some declensions (девица–девицы). The very few words with цы inside or at the beginning are learned by school children by heart: цыган, цыкать, цыплёнок, цыпочки, цып-цып, цыц. Also, there are some obsolete usages, seen in old texts, such as цынга (цинга), цыновка (циновка), панцырь (панцирь) etc.

Transliteration

A regular transliteration of ц into English is <ts>. However, in proper names (personal names, toponyms, etc.) and titles it may also be rendered as <c> (which signifies the sound in Serbian, Czech, Hungarian etc.), <z> (which signifies the sound in Italian), <cz> or <tz>.

See also

• C, c - Latin