Omega (/ˈmɡə, -ˈmɛɡə, -ˈmɡə/, UK: /ˈmɪɡə/;[1]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").[2]

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: []. In Modern Greek, both omega and omicron represent the mid back rounded vowel IPA: [] 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.

History

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 (, , , ).[3] 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/.[3]

The name Ωμέγα is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō () (pronounced /ɔ̂ː/), whereas the omicron was called ou (οὖ) (pronounced /ôː/).[4] 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.[5]

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 .

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 symbol Ω (uppercase letter)

Plaque in Kos with "underlined O" form of omega

The uppercase letter Ω is used as a symbol:

The symbol ω (lower case letter)

The minuscule letter ω is used as a symbol:

Character encodings

Greek omega/Coptic oou

Character information
PreviewΩω
Unicode name GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA COPTIC CAPITAL LETTER OOU COPTIC SMALL LETTER OOU
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode937U+03A9969U+03C911440U+2CB011441U+2CB1
UTF-8206 169CE A9207 137CF 89226 178 176E2 B2 B0226 178 177E2 B2 B1
Numeric character referenceΩΩωωⲰⲰⲱⲱ
Named character referenceΩ, Ωω
DOS Greek15197224E0
DOS Greek-2213D5250FA
Windows 1253217D9249F9
TeX\Omega\omega

[11]

Cyrillic omega

Character information
PreviewѠѡ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER OMEGA COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER OMEGA
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechex
Unicode1120U+04601121U+046142619U+A67B
UTF-8209 160D1 A0209 161D1 A1234 153 187EA 99 BB
Numeric character referenceѠѠѡѡꙻꙻ
Character information
PreviewѺѻ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ROUND OMEGA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ROUND OMEGA CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER BROAD OMEGA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BROAD OMEGA
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode1146U+047A1147U+047B42572U+A64C42573U+A64D
UTF-8209 186D1 BA209 187D1 BB234 153 140EA 99 8C234 153 141EA 99 8D
Numeric character referenceѺѺѻѻꙌꙌꙍꙍ

Latin/IPA omega

Character information
Previewɷ𐞤
Unicode name LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OMEGA LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA LATIN SMALL LETTER OMEGA MODIFIER LETTER SMALL CLOSED OMEGA
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode631U+027742934U+A7B642935U+A7B767492U+107A4
UTF-8201 183C9 B7234 158 182EA 9E B6234 158 183EA 9E B7240 144 158 164F0 90 9E A4
UTF-16631027742934A7B642935A7B755297 57252D801 DFA4
Numeric character referenceɷɷꞶꞶꞷꞷ𐞤𐞤

Technical omega symbols

Character information
Preview
Unicode name APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL OMEGA APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL OMEGA UNDERBAR OHM SIGN INVERTED OHM SIGN
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode9077U+23759081U+23798486U+21268487U+2127
UTF-8226 141 181E2 8D B5226 141 185E2 8D B9226 132 166E2 84 A6226 132 167E2 84 A7
Numeric character reference⍵⍵⍹⍹ΩΩ℧℧
Named character reference℧

Mathematical omega

Character information
Preview𝛀𝛚𝛺𝜔𝜴𝝎
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
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode120512U+1D6C0120538U+1D6DA120570U+1D6FA120596U+1D714120628U+1D734120654U+1D74E
UTF-8240 157 155 128F0 9D 9B 80240 157 155 154F0 9D 9B 9A240 157 155 186F0 9D 9B BA240 157 156 148F0 9D 9C 94240 157 156 180F0 9D 9C B4240 157 157 142F0 9D 9D 8E
UTF-1655349 57024D835 DEC055349 57050D835 DEDA55349 57082D835 DEFA55349 57108D835 DF1455349 57140D835 DF3455349 57166D835 DF4E
Numeric character reference𝛀𝛀𝛚𝛚𝛺𝛺𝜔𝜔𝜴𝜴𝝎𝝎
Character information
Preview𝝮𝞈𝞨𝟂
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
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode120686U+1D76E120712U+1D788120744U+1D7A8120770U+1D7C2
UTF-8240 157 157 174F0 9D 9D AE240 157 158 136F0 9D 9E 88240 157 158 168F0 9D 9E A8240 157 159 130F0 9D 9F 82
UTF-1655349 57198D835 DF6E55349 57224D835 DF8855349 57256D835 DFA855349 57282D835 DFC2
Numeric character reference𝝮𝝮𝞈𝞈𝞨𝞨𝟂𝟂

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.

References

  1. Wells, John C. (2008). "omega". Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
  2. "The Greek Alphabet".
  3. 1 2 Anne Jeffery (1961), The local scripts of archaic Greece, p.37–38.
  4. Herbert Weir Smyth. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. §1
  5. Edward M. Thompson (1912), Introduction to Greek and Latin paleography, Oxford: Clarendon. p.144
  6. Capilla, José E.; Arevalo, Javier Rodriguez; Castaño, Silvino Castaño; Teijeiro, María Fé Díaz; del Moral, Rut Sanchez; Diaz, Javier Heredia (19 September 2012). "Mapping Oxygen-18 in Meteoric Precipitation over Peninsular Spain Using Geostatistical Tools" (PDF). cedex.es. Valencia, Spain: Ninth Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
  7. Excerpts from The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0. Retrieved 11 October 2006.
  8. Weisstein, Eric W. "Prime Factor". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  9. "first uncountable ordinal in nLab". NCatLab.org. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  10. "Definition of Omega Male, BuzzWord from Macmillan Dictionary". macmillandictionary.com. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  11. Unicode Code Charts: Greek and Coptic (Range: 0370-03FF)
  • Media related to Omega (letter) at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of ω at Wiktionary
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