Kappa

How to spell kappa

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce kappa

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does kappa mean?

1. nounThe tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, written K or its lowercase form.

Kappa in a sentence

• The physics lecturer wrote a lowercase kappa on the board to label the constant.

• In the fraternity name, the middle kappa stood out among the other Greek letters.

Where does kappa come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Kappa is the name of the tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, written as a capital K and a lowercase form that resembles a small k. The Greeks adapted it from the Phoenician letter kaph, whose name literally meant 'palm of the hand', and whose early shape may have echoed that meaning. When the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet around the eighth century BCE, they kept the consonant sound and the basic form, and this letter eventually became the ancestor of the Roman letter K used in English today. The English spelling 'kappa' preserves the Greek name with its doubled p, which is the part that trips writers up, since the single-p look feels equally plausible. The word reached English mainly through scholarly and scientific use, where Greek letters routinely label angles, coefficients, and constants.

How the word is built

• kappa (Greek letter name, from Phoenician kaph: palm of the hand)