Nu

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The thirteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, written as lowercase ν or uppercase Ν and used as a symbol in mathematics and science
2. A letter of the Greek alphabet, the thirteenth in sequence, represented by the lowercase symbol ν in written texts
3. The Greek alphabetic character occupying thirteenth position, often used to denote frequency in physics and a variable in statistics

Etymology: The Ancient Greek name for the letter ν, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, was "nû," and English took the letter's name and its shape from that Greek source. The Greek letter stands for the sound of N, and its name became the label for the letter in every later alphabet that descended from it. English also has a separate "nu" borrowed from Yiddish, where it is an interjection meaning something like "well," "so," or "come on." That Yiddish form and the English word "now" are doublets, meaning they share a common origin and reached English by different routes, so they are related even though they look and sound different. A third source gives "nu" as a phonetic respelling of "new," a way of writing the sound of that word as it is spoken.