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Omega (/oʊˈmiːɡə, oʊˈmɛɡə, oʊˈmeɪɡə, əˈmiːɡə/;[1][2] capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" (ō mega, mega meaning "great"), as opposed to omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning "little").[3]
In phonetic terms, the Ancient Greek Ω represented a long open-mid back rounded vowel IPA: [ɔː], comparable to the "aw" of the English word raw in dialects without the cot–caught merger, in contrast to omicron which represented the close-mid back rounded vowel IPA: [o] , and the digraph ου which represented the long close-mid back rounded vowel IPA: [oː]. In Modern Greek, both omega and omicron represent the mid back rounded vowel IPA: [o̞] or IPA: [ɔ̝]. The letter omega is transliterated into a Latin-script alphabet as ō or simply o.
As the final letter in the Greek alphabet, omega is often used to denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set, in contrast to alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet; see Alpha and Omega.
Ω was not part of the early (8th century BC) Greek alphabets. It was introduced in the late 7th century BC in the Ionian cities of Asia Minor to denote a long open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔː]. It is a variant of omicron (Ο), broken up at the side (), with the edges subsequently turned outward (
,
,
,
).[4]
The Dorian city of Knidos as well as a few Aegean islands, namely Paros, Thasos and Melos, chose the exact opposite innovation, using a broken-up circle for the short and a closed circle for the long /o/.[4]
The name Ωμέγα is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō (ὦ) (pronounced /ɔ̂ː/), whereas the omicron was called ou (οὖ) (pronounced /ôː/).[5]
The modern lowercase shape goes back to the uncial form , a form that developed during the 3rd century BC in ancient handwriting on papyrus, from a flattened-out form of the letter (
) that had its edges curved even further upward.[6]
In addition to the Greek alphabet, Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet. See Cyrillic omega (Ѡ, ѡ). A Raetic variant is conjectured to be at the origin or parallel evolution of the Elder Futhark ᛟ.
Omega was also adopted into the Latin alphabet, as a letter of the 1982 revision to the African reference alphabet. It has had little use. See Latin omega.
The uppercase letter Ω is used as a symbol:
Ω
), but it is included only for backward compatibility, and the canonically equivalent code point U+03A9 Ω GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA (Ω
) is preferred.[8]The minuscule letter ω is used as a symbol:
Preview | Ω | ω | Ⲱ | ⲱ | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA | GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA | COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER OOU | COPTIC SMALL LETTER OOU | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 937 | U+03A9 | 969 | U+03C9 | 11440 | U+2CB0 | 11441 | U+2CB1 |
UTF-8 | 206 169 | CE A9 | 207 137 | CF 89 | 226 178 176 | E2 B2 B0 | 226 178 177 | E2 B2 B1 |
Numeric character reference | Ω |
Ω |
ω |
ω |
Ⲱ |
Ⲱ |
ⲱ |
ⲱ |
Named character reference | Ω, Ω | ω | ||||||
DOS Greek | 151 | 97 | 224 | E0 | ||||
DOS Greek-2 | 213 | D5 | 250 | FA | ||||
Windows 1253 | 217 | D9 | 249 | F9 | ||||
TeX | \Omega | \omega |
Preview | Ѡ | ѡ | ꙻ | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA | CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER OMEGA | COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER OMEGA | |||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 1120 | U+0460 | 1121 | U+0461 | 42619 | U+A67B |
UTF-8 | 209 160 | D1 A0 | 209 161 | D1 A1 | 234 153 187 | EA 99 BB |
Numeric character reference | Ѡ |
Ѡ |
ѡ |
ѡ |
ꙻ |
ꙻ |
Preview | Ѻ | ѻ | Ꙍ | ꙍ | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ROUND OMEGA | CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ROUND OMEGA | CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER BROAD OMEGA | CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BROAD OMEGA | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 1146 | U+047A | 1147 | U+047B | 42572 | U+A64C | 42573 | U+A64D |
UTF-8 | 209 186 | D1 BA | 209 187 | D1 BB | 234 153 140 | EA 99 8C | 234 153 141 | EA 99 8D |
Numeric character reference | Ѻ |
Ѻ |
ѻ |
ѻ |
Ꙍ |
Ꙍ |
ꙍ |
ꙍ |
Preview | ɷ | Ꞷ | ꞷ | 𐞤 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OMEGA | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA | LATIN SMALL LETTER OMEGA | MODIFIER LETTER SMALL CLOSED OMEGA | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 631 | U+0277 | 42934 | U+A7B6 | 42935 | U+A7B7 | 67492 | U+107A4 |
UTF-8 | 201 183 | C9 B7 | 234 158 182 | EA 9E B6 | 234 158 183 | EA 9E B7 | 240 144 158 164 | F0 90 9E A4 |
UTF-16 | 631 | 0277 | 42934 | A7B6 | 42935 | A7B7 | 55297 57252 | D801 DFA4 |
Numeric character reference | ɷ |
ɷ |
Ꞷ |
Ꞷ |
ꞷ |
ꞷ |
𐞤 |
𐞤 |
Preview | ⍵ | ⍹ | Ω | ℧ | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL OMEGA | APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL OMEGA UNDERBAR | OHM SIGN | INVERTED OHM SIGN | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 9077 | U+2375 | 9081 | U+2379 | 8486 | U+2126 | 8487 | U+2127 |
UTF-8 | 226 141 181 | E2 8D B5 | 226 141 185 | E2 8D B9 | 226 132 166 | E2 84 A6 | 226 132 167 | E2 84 A7 |
Numeric character reference | ⍵ |
⍵ |
⍹ |
⍹ |
Ω |
Ω |
℧ |
℧ |
Named character reference | ℧ |
Preview | 𝛀 | 𝛚 | 𝛺 | 𝜔 | 𝜴 | 𝝎 | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL BOLD SMALL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL ITALIC CAPITAL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL ITALIC SMALL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL BOLD ITALIC SMALL OMEGA | ||||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 120512 | U+1D6C0 | 120538 | U+1D6DA | 120570 | U+1D6FA | 120596 | U+1D714 | 120628 | U+1D734 | 120654 | U+1D74E |
UTF-8 | 240 157 155 128 | F0 9D 9B 80 | 240 157 155 154 | F0 9D 9B 9A | 240 157 155 186 | F0 9D 9B BA | 240 157 156 148 | F0 9D 9C 94 | 240 157 156 180 | F0 9D 9C B4 | 240 157 157 142 | F0 9D 9D 8E |
UTF-16 | 55349 57024 | D835 DEC0 | 55349 57050 | D835 DEDA | 55349 57082 | D835 DEFA | 55349 57108 | D835 DF14 | 55349 57140 | D835 DF34 | 55349 57166 | D835 DF4E |
Numeric character reference | 𝛀 |
𝛀 |
𝛚 |
𝛚 |
𝛺 |
𝛺 |
𝜔 |
𝜔 |
𝜴 |
𝜴 |
𝝎 |
𝝎 |
Preview | 𝝮 | 𝞈 | 𝞨 | 𝟂 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD CAPITAL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD SMALL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL OMEGA |
MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC SMALL OMEGA | ||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 120686 | U+1D76E | 120712 | U+1D788 | 120744 | U+1D7A8 | 120770 | U+1D7C2 |
UTF-8 | 240 157 157 174 | F0 9D 9D AE | 240 157 158 136 | F0 9D 9E 88 | 240 157 158 168 | F0 9D 9E A8 | 240 157 159 130 | F0 9D 9F 82 |
UTF-16 | 55349 57198 | D835 DF6E | 55349 57224 | D835 DF88 | 55349 57256 | D835 DFA8 | 55349 57282 | D835 DFC2 |
Numeric character reference | 𝝮 |
𝝮 |
𝞈 |
𝞈 |
𝞨 |
𝞨 |
𝟂 |
𝟂 |
These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate the style of the text.