M

This article is about the letter of the Roman alphabet. For the letter of the Cyrillic script (М, м), see Em (Cyrillic). For other uses, see M (disambiguation).

For technical reasons, "M#" redirects here. For the programming language, see M Sharp.

M, or m, is the thirteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is em (pronounced /ˈɛm/), plural ems.^[1]

M
M m
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin	Latin language
Phonetic usage	[m] [ɱ] [n] [n̼] /ɛm/
Unicode codepoint	U+004D, U+006D
Alphabetical position	13 Numerical value: 1000
History
Development	Μ μ 𐌌 M m
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• ₥  • ™  • ℠  • ᴟ  • ꬺ  • ꟽ ɯ ɰ  • ꟿ  • ᛗ
Sisters	М Ӎ מ ם م ܡ מּ ﬦ Ⰿ ࠌ 𐌼
Variations	(See below)
Other
Other letters commonly used with	m(x)
Associated numbers	1000
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

History

Egyptian hieroglyph "n"	Phoenician Mem	Etruscan M	Greek Mu	Latin M

The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem is most likely derived from a "Proto-Sinaitic" (Bronze Age) adoption of the "water" ideogram in Egyptian writing. The Egyptian sign had the acrophonic value /n/, from the Egyptian word for "water", nt; the adoption as the Semitic letter for /m/ was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the Semitic word for "water", *mā(y)-.^[2]

Use in writing systems

The letter ⟨m⟩ represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound [m] in the orthography of Latin as well as in that of many modern languages, and also in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In English, the Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that ⟨m⟩ is sometimes a vowel, in words like spasm and in the suffix -ism. In modern terminology, this is described as a syllabic consonant (IPA [m̩]).

In Washo, lower-case ⟨m⟩ represents a typical em sound, while upper-case ⟨M⟩ represents a voiceless em sound.

Other uses

 

Styled letter M in the coat of arms of Miehikkälä

• The Roman numeral M represents the number 1000, though it was not used in Roman times. There is, however, scant evidence that the letter was later introduced in the early centuries A.D. by the Romans.^[3]
• Unit prefix M (mega), meaning one million times, and m (milli) meaning one-thousandth.^[4][5]
• m is the standard abbreviation for metre (or meter) in the International System of Units (SI).^[4] However, m is also used as an abbreviation for mile.^[5]
• M is used as the unit abbreviation for molarity.^[4]
• With money amounts, m or M can mean one million: For example, $5m is five million dollars.^[4][5]
• M often represents male or masculine, especially in conjunction with F for female or feminine.^[4][5]
• M (James Bond) is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond book and film series.
• In typography, an em dash is a punctuation symbol whose width is equal to that of a capital letter M.

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

• M with diacritics: Ḿ ḿ Ṁ ṁ Ṃ ṃ M̃ m̃ ᵯ^[6]
• IPA-specific symbols related to M: ɱ ɰ
• Ɱ : Capital M with hook
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to M:^[7]
  • U+1D0D ᴍ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL M
  • U+1D1F ᴟ LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS TURNED M
  • U+1D39 ᴹ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL M
  • U+1D50 ᵐ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL M
  • U+1D5A ᵚ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL TURNED M
• Some symbols related to M were used by the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902:^[8]
  • U+2098 ₘ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER M
  • U+A7FA ꟺ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL TURNED M
• The Teuthonista phonetic transcription system uses U+AB3A ꬺ LATIN SMALL LETTER M WITH CROSSED-TAIL^[9]
• Other variations used for phonetic transcription:^[10] ᶆ ᶬ ᶭ
• Ɯ ɯ : Turned M
• ꟽ : Inverted M was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for mulier (woman)^[11]
• ꟿ : Archaic M was used in ancient Roman texts to abbreviate the personal name 'Manius' (A regular capital M was used for the more common personal name 'Marcus')^[11]
• ℳ : currency symbol for Mark

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

• 𐤌 : Semitic letter Mem, from which the following symbols originally derive
  • Μ μ : Greek letter Mu, from which M derives
    • Ⲙ ⲙ : Coptic letter Me, which derives from Greek Mu
    • М м : Cyrillic letter Em, also derived from Mu
    • 𐌌 : Old Italic M, which derives from Greek Mu, and is the ancestor of modern Latin M
      • ᛗ : Runic letter Mannaz, which derives from old Italic M
    • 𐌼 : Gothic letter manna, which derives from Greek Mu

Ligatures and abbreviations

• ₥ : Mill (currency)
• ™ : Trademark symbol
• ℠ : Service mark symbol

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	M		m
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER M		LATIN SMALL LETTER M
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	77	U+004D	109	U+006D
UTF-8	77	4D	109	6D
Numeric character reference	M	M	m	m
EBCDIC family	212	D4	148	94
ASCII ^1	77	4D	109	6D

¹ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Mike	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-134 Unified English Braille

References

1. "M" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "em," op. cit.
2. See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic — Progenitor of the Alphabet" Rosetta 9 (2011): Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38) Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39), Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" (fig. 1 2016-07-03 at the Wayback Machine).
3. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 45. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015. roman numerals.
4. "What does M stand for?". The Free Dictionary. from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
5. "M definition and meaning". Collins English Dictionary. from the original on 27 February 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
6. Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
7. Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
8. Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
9. Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
10. Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
11. Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14. Retrieved 2018-03-24.

External links

•   Media related to M at Wikimedia Commons
•   The dictionary definition of M at Wiktionary
•   The dictionary definition of m at Wiktionary