P

For other uses of "P", see P (disambiguation).

Due to technical restrictions, ":P" and "P#" redirect here.

For ":P", see List of common emoticons but ":p" may mean printing a history expansion in Bash.

For the "P#" programming language, see P Sharp.

ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh
Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll
Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt
Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx
Yy	Zz

P ( /ˈpiː/; named pee) is the sixteenth letter of the ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Usage

In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words. A common example of assimilation is the tendency of prefixes ending in N to assume an M sound before Ps (such as in + pulse → impulse — see also List of Latin words with English derivatives).

A common digraph in English is ph, which represents the voiceless labiodental fricative /f/, and can be used to transliterate Phi (φ) in loanwords from Greek. In German, the digraph pf is common, representing a labial affricate of /pf/.

Arabic speakers are usually unaccustomed to pronouncing /p/; they pronounce it as /b/.

Most English words beginning with P are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin, Greek, and Slavic. In these languages, words from Proto Indo-European have p at the beginning if they come from initial p. In English, which is a Germanic language, such words start with F.

History

Phoenician P	Archaic Greek Pi	Greek Pi	Etruscan P	Latin P

Related letters and other similar characters

The Latin letter P represents the same sound as the Greek letter Pi, but it looks like the Greek letter Rho.

• Π π : Greek letter Pi
• П п : Cyrillic letter Pe
• Ρ ρ/ϱ : Greek letter Rho
• Р р : Cyrillic letter Er
• פ ף : Hebrew letter Pe
• ℘ : script letter P, see Weierstrass p
• Ⓟ ⓟ : circled Latin letter P
• ℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
• Þ þ : Latin letter Thorn
• Ƿ ƿ : Latin letter Wynn

Computing codes

character	P		p
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P		LATIN SMALL LETTER P
character encoding	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	80	0050	112	0070
UTF-8	80	50	112	70
Numeric character reference	P	P	p	p
EBCDIC family	215	D7	151	97
ASCII 1	80	50	112	70

¹ and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Papa	·––·

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	Braille

See also

• Mind your Ps and Qs
• Pence or "penny," the English slang for which is p (eg. "20p" = 20 pence)

External links

• Media related to P at Wikimedia Commons
• The Wiktionary entry for P
• The Wiktionary entry for p

The ISO basic Latin alphabet
Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd	Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp	Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz
Letter P with diacritics
Ṕṕ	Ṗṗ	Ᵽᵽ	Ƥƥ	P̃p̃	ᵱ	ᶈ
Related
History Palaeography Derivations Diacritics Punctuation Numerals Unicode List of letters ISO/IEC 646