B

See also Appendix:Variations of "b"

Translingual

Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B
Codepoint	U+0042
A ← Basic Latin → C

Etymology 1

From Ancient Greek letter Β (B, “Beta”).

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.

Usage notes

The letter B (usually its lower case form b) is used in several romanization systems of non-Latin scripts to represent the bilabial plosive or stop, usually voiced (IPA: /b/).

See also

• (Latin script):  Aa  Bb  Cc  Dd  Ee  Ff  Gg  Hh  Ii  Jj  Kk  Ll  Mm  Nn  Oo  Pp  Qq  Rr  Ss  Tt  Uu  Vv  Ww  Xx  Yy  Zz
• (Variations of letter B):  Ḃḃ  Ḅḅ  Ḇḇ  Ƀƀ  Ɓɓ  Ƃƃ  ᵬ  ᶀ  ʙ  Ｂｂ  ȸ  ℔
• For more variations, see Appendix:Variations of "b".
• (other scripts) Β (B) (“Beta”), Б (B) (“Be”), В (V) (“Ve”), ב (b) (“beth”)

Etymology 2

• (blood type):, from antigen B
• (symbol for boron): abbreviation of boron
• (hexadecimal 11): The eleventh item from the sequence {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}

Symbol

B

1. A blood type that has a specific antigen that aggravates the immune response in people with type A antigen in their blood. They can receive blood from type B or type O, but cannot receive blood from AB or A.
2. (chemistry) The symbol for boron.
3. (computing) Hexadecimal symbol for 11.
4. (biochemistry) IUPAC 1-letter abbreviation for either glutamine or glutamic acid

See also

• B on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Other representations of B:

NATO phonetic: Bravo Morse code: –··· Braille: ⠃ ASL Manual: B

Signal flag:

Semaphore:

• Letter styles
• 

  Capital and lowercase versions of B, in normal and italic type

• 

  Uppercase and lowercase B in Fraktur

• 

  B in uncial script

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English

Pronunciation

• (phoneme) IPA: /b/, X-SAMPA: /b/
• (letter name) IPA: /biː/, X-SAMPA: /bi:/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iː

Etymology 1

Old English letter B, from 7th century replacement by Latin B of the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc letter ᛒ (B, “beorc”).

Letter

B uppercase (lowercase b)

1. The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.
   • 1945, George Orwell, Animal Farm, chapter 3

     Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof […]

Usage notes

In Modern English, the letter B is sometimes silent, e.g. in climb, and debt.

Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals of single upper case letters, especially at the start of a sentence:

A’s are difficult to achieve in this class.

Usually, though, the apostrophe is avoided when there is no risk of confusion:

She gets straight As in school.

See also

• (Latin script letters) letter; Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz

Number

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The ordinal number second, derived from this letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Etymology 2

• (cricket, balls): abbreviation of balls
• (billion): abbreviation of billion
• (black): abbreviation of black

Abbreviation

B

1. (cricket) the number of balls faced by a batsman
2. The quantity one billion (1,000,000,000), usually used to signify a sum of money

   $2.8 B — “two point eight billion dollars” (i.e., $2,800,000,000)

3. (UK) The grade of pencil that makes darker marks than grade HB but lighter marks than grade 2B; a pencil with soft lead.
4. (chess) Bishop

Etymology 3

• (personality type): from contrast with the letter ‘A’ and its corresponding personality type
• (academic grade): from the position of the letter ‘B’ in the English alphabet

Noun

B (plural Bs)

1. A personality type of someone who is relaxed and easygoing and able to engage in leisure activities without worrying about work.
2. An academic grade, better than a C and worse than an A
3. Signifies a second-tier or second class of a given commodity, group, or category, as in B-movie, B-list, etc.

   The television studio revived some of it's B characters for the spinoff.

4. Alternate or secondary part, as the back side of a phonograph record. Contrasted with A, which is the primary part.
5. (music) The seventh note in the C major scale.

See also

• B-side
• plan B

Translations

musical note

• Czech: H (cs)
• French: si (fr) m

• German: H (de) n

Usage notes

Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals of single upper case letters, especially at the start of a sentence:

A’s are difficult to achieve in this class.

Usually, though, the apostrophe is avoided when there is no risk of confusion:

She gets straight As in school.

Symbol

B

1. (computing) byte

Derived terms

• (computing): Bps , B/s
• (computing): kB , MB , GB , TB , PB , EB

See also

• (computing): b (bit)

Translations

byte

• French: o (fr) (octet)

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American Sign Language

Alternative forms

• (thumb unopposed and flat against the radial edge of the palm, used in rapid fingerspelling of words like B-A-B-Y) FlatB

Etymology

From French Sign Language sign for the letter B.

Production

This one-handed ASL sign is produced as follows:

• Posture the dominant hand in the “B” handshape .

Letter

(Stokoe B)

1. The letter B

See also

• Index:American Sign Language/B

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Azeri

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Azeri alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) hərf; Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Əə, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz

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Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA: /be/

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Catalan alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) alfabet català; Aa, Bb, Cc, (Çç), Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, (L·Ll·l), Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz

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Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA: /beː/

Letter

B

1. B (the 2nd letter in the Czech alphabet)
2. (music): B flat

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Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA: /beː/

Letter

B (capital, lowercase b)

1. The second letter of the Dutch alphabet.

See also

• Previous letter: A
• Next letter: C

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Esperanto

Pronunciation

• (letter name): IPA: /bo/
• (phoneme): IPA: /b/

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Esperanto alphabet, called bo and written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) litero; Aa, Bb, Cc, Ĉĉ, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ĝĝ, Hh, Ĥĥ, Ii, Jj, Ĵĵ, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Ŝŝ, Tt, Uu, Ŭŭ, Vv, Zz

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Finnish

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Finnish alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

• Used only in loanwords.

See also

• (Latin script letters) letter; Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Šš, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz, Žž, Åå, Ää, Öö

Abbreviation

B

1. lubenter approbatur

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German

Pronunciation

• IPA: /beː/

• Audio

  (file)

Letter

B (upper case, lower case b)

1. The second letter of the German alphabet.

Noun

B n (genitive B, no plural)

1. (music) B-flat

See also

• H (“B (musical note)”)

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German Sign Language

Etymology

Related to the French Sign Language sign for "B".

Production

This one-handed GSL sign is produced as follows:

• Posture the dominant hand in the “B” shape.

Letter

1. the letter B

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Italian

Wikipedia ^it

Pronunciation

• (letter name) IPA: /bi/, X-SAMPA: /bi/
• (phoneme) IPA: /b/, X-SAMPA: /b/

Letter

B m, f (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Italian alphabet, called bi and written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) lettera; Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, (Jj), (Kk), Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, (Ww), (Xx), (Yy), Zz
• Italian alphabet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia:Italian alphabet

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Latvian

Wikipedia ^lv

Etymology

Proposed in 1908 as part of the new Latvian spelling by the scientific commission headed by K. Mīlenbahs, which was accepted and began to be taught in schools in 1909. Prior to that, Latvian had been written in German Fraktur, and sporadically in Cyrillic.

Pronunciation

• IPA: [b]

Letter

B

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The third letter of the Latvian alphabet, called bē and written in the Latin script.

See also

• Letters of the Latvian alphabet:

  burti: Aa, Āā, Bb, Cc, Čč, Dd, Ee, Ēē, Ff, Gg, Ģģ, Hh, Ii, Īī, Jj, Kk, Ķķ, Ll, Ļļ, Mm, Nn, Ņņ, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Šš, Tt, Uu, Ūū, Vv, Zz, Žž

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Malay

Wikipedia ^ms

Pronunciation

• (Name of letter) IPA: [bi]
• (Phoneme, Syllable initial) IPA: [b]
• (Phoneme, Syllable final) IPA: [p̚]

Letter

B

1. The second letter of the Malay alphabet, written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz

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Romanian

Pronunciation

• (phoneme) IPA: /b/
• (letter name) IPA: /be/

Letter

B (upper case, lower case b)

1. The letter be, the fourth letter of the Romanian alphabet.

See also

• Previous letter: Â
• Next letter: C

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Slovene

Wikipedia ^sl

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Slovene alphabet, called b or be and written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) Aa, Bb, Cc, Čč, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Šš, Tt, Uu, Vv, Zz, Žž

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Somali

Pronunciation

• (phoneme): IPA: /b/
• (letter name): IPA: /ba/

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Somali alphabet, called ba and written in the Latin script.

Usage notes

1. The second letter of the Somali alphabet, which follows Arabic abjad order. It is preceded by ' and followed by T.

See also

• (Latin script letters) '', Bb, Tt, Jj, Xx, KHkh, Dd, Rr, Ss, SHsh, DHdh, Cc, Gg, Ff, Qq, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Ww, Hh, Yy, Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo, Uu

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Spanish

Letter

B (upper case, lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Spanish alphabet.

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Turkish

Letter

B upper case (lower case b)

1. The second letter of the Turkish alphabet, called be and written in the Latin script.

See also

• (Latin script letters) harf; Aa, Bb, Cc, Çç, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ğğ, Hh, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Yy, Zz