m

Symbol for metre.

M

Roman numeral for 1,000.

M

13th letter of the English alphabet. It corresponds to the Greek mu (Μ, μ) and the Semitic mem, and is almost always sounded as a voiced bilabial nasal. Finally, or before consonants, it disappears in French, Portuguese, and other languages, leaving a trace in the nasalization of the preceding vowel.

It was the 13th letter in the North Semitic alphabets, but the 12th in the Greek, the 11th in the Etruscan, the 12th in the Latin, and the 14th in the early Slavonic alphabets.

M

Film made in Germany in 1931, directed and co-written by Fritz Lang. It is loosely based on the real-life hunt for a Düsseldorf child-murderer, in which the criminal underworld assisted the forces of law and order to track the killer down.

In his first sound film, Lang comments on the ironic parallels between organized crime and the police and analyses the psychological make-up of a compulsive killer, hauntingly played by Peter Lorre.