g

Symbol for gram.

G

Seventh letter of the English alphabet. It was formed by the Romans by adding a tail to the letter C, which represented the /k/ sound.

In modern English, g stands sometimes for /g/ as in ‘frog’, and sometimes for a voiced palatoalveolar affricate, as in ‘singe’ or ‘edge’. In initial spelling gn, g is silent, as in ‘gnaw’, and it is also silent in many words of French origin, such as ‘sign’ and ‘feign’. G with h can be silent, as in ‘high’, or have the sound /f/, as in ‘enough’. The spelling ng in final position stands for a velar nasal, as in ‘ring’; medially, the nasal sound may or may not be followed by a voiced plosive, as in ‘singer’ and ‘younger’.

The Semitic gimel, Greek gamma (Γ, γ), passed through the Etruscan alphabet to Latin and became c, used for both /k/ and /g/. It is thought that in 312 BC Appius Claudius Censor added a bar to the lower end of the C, converting it into G, denoting the voiced guttural plosive /g/. This letter was placed in the position of the zeta in the Greek alphabet, which was dropped.

G

In music, the fifth note, or dominant, of the scale of C major.