Gamma

How to spell gamma

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gamma

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gamma mean?

1. nounThe third letter of the Greek alphabet, often used to denote a third item, value, or category in a series.

Gamma in a sentence

• The physics handout listed alpha, beta, and gamma as the three letters used for the readings.

• In the dataset each variable was tagged with a Greek symbol, and the third column was marked gamma.

Where does gamma come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Gamma is the name of the third letter of the Greek alphabet, written as the capital and the lowercase forms that English borrowed wholesale. The Greeks took both the letter and its name from the Phoenician letter gimel, whose name literally meant 'camel', because the early shape was thought to resemble a camel's hump or neck. From Phoenician it passed into Greek as gamma, and from there into Latin, where the same sign eventually evolved into the letters C and G that we still use. English adopted the Greek name directly for scientific and mathematical purposes, so that gamma now labels a third quantity in a sequence, much as alpha and beta mark the first and second. Its modern uses, from gamma rays to gamma correction in photography, all trace back to this simple counting role, and the doubled m keeps it clearly distinct from the unrelated word gamut.

How the word is built

• gamma (the third letter of the Greek alphabet, used as a label for a third item, type, or quantity)