W

Abbreviation for west; in physics, symbol for watt.

W

In physics, symbol for watt, the SI unit of power, equal to a power output of 1 joule per second. Multiple units include the kilowatt (kW, 1,000 watts) and megawatt (MW, 1,000,000 watts).

W

23rd letter of the English alphabet, representing either a labiovelar semivowel, as in ‘war’ and ‘wine’, or part of a vowel diagraph, as in ‘law’and ‘few’. It is essentially a u in consonantal function. It is not pronounced before r, as in ‘write’ and ‘wren’, or in cases like ‘two’ and ‘sword’.

It is called double u because it was written uu or vv, which in ligature resulted in w.

It appeared in the 11th century to differentiate from v. The North Semitic waw, and its descendant the Greek digamma probably had a similar sound to the English /w/. Some scholars think that the Latin v, representing the consonant v and the vowel u, was pronounced like the modern English /w/. In Welsh names w is generally a vowel, as in Betws-y-Coed and Braich-y-pwll.