tau
noun
Simple meaning
The letter Τ /τ in the Greek alphabet.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
towIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtaʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The letter Τ /τ in the Greek alphabet; being the nineteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek, and the twenty-first letter of the Old and Ancient Greek alphabets.
A Τ-shaped object or sign; a Saint Anthony's cross, sometimes regarded as a sacred symbol.
christianity
A crosier with a Τ-shaped head.
Ellipsis of tau lepton or tau particle ("an unstable elementary particle which is a type of lepton, having a mass almost twice that of a proton, a negative charge, and a spin of ½; it decays into hadrons (usually pions) or other leptons, and neutrinos; a tauon").
Tawed leather.
The ankh symbol (☥).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The letter Τ /τ in the Greek alphabet; being the nineteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek, and the twenty-first letter of the Old and Ancient Greek alphabets.
Used this way, tau is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in historical writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.