Mem

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, written as a symbol shaped like an open box and pronounced with an m sound
2. A letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the thirteenth in order, which represents the consonant m in Hebrew script
3. The Hebrew alphabet's thirteenth character, equivalent to the sound m, used in writing Hebrew and Yiddish

Etymology: The letter's name meant "water." In the Semitic alphabets, "mem" came from a word for water, and its sign was originally a zigzag of waves. The letter kept that name as it passed through Phoenician into Hebrew, where it is the thirteenth letter, and in its later angular forms it no longer looks much like waves. The same letter traveled west. Greek took it over as mu, which became the Greek letter for the sound "m," and the Latin "M" descends from that Greek form. So the letter for "m" in English is a distant relative of a sign that once pictured rippling water.