Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

O

O (ō). 1. O, the fifteenth letter of the English alphabet, derives its form, value, and name from the Greek O, through the Latin. The letter came into the Greek from the Phœnician, which possibly derived it ultimately from the Egyptian. Etymologically, the letter o is most closely related to a, e, and u; as in E. bone, AS. bān; E. stone, AS. stān; E. broke, AS. brecan to break; E. bore, AS. beran to bear; E. dove, AS. dūfe; E. toft, tuft; tone, tune; number, F. nombre.

The letter o has several vowel sounds, the principal of which are its long sound, as in bone, its short sound, as in nod, and the sounds heard in the words orb, son, do (feod), and wolf (book). In connection with the other vowels it forms several digraphs and diphthongs. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 107-129.

2. Among the ancients, O was a mark of triple time, from the notion that the ternary, or number 3, is the most perfect of numbers, and properly expressed by a circle, the most perfect figure.

O was also anciently used to represent 11: with a dash over it (Ō), 11,000.

O (ō), n.; pl. O's or Oes (ōz). 1. The letter O, or its sound. "Mouthing out his hollow oes and aes." Tennyson.

2. Something shaped like the letter O; a circle or oval. "This wooden O [Globe Theater]". Shak.

3. A cipher; zero. [R.]

Thou art an O without a figure. Shak.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.