Xi (letter)

Revision as of 05:32, 1 May 2025 by imported>Citation bot (Add: publisher, authors 1-1. Removed parameters. Some additions/deletions were parameter name changes. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | Category:Articles needing additional references from June 2010 | #UCB_Category 699/961)
(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Distinguish Template:More citations needed Template:Greek Alphabet

Xi (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell or Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell;<ref>Template:OED</ref><ref>"xi". New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition.</ref> uppercase Ξ, lowercase ξ; Template:Langx) is the fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless consonant cluster {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Its name is pronounced {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 60. Xi was derived from the Phoenician letter samekh File:Phoenician samekh.svg.

Xi is distinct from the letter chi, which gave its form to the Latin letter X.

GreekEdit

File:Xi alternate.png
A joined variant of Ξ (New Athena Unicode font)

Both in classical Ancient Greek and in Modern Greek, the letter Ξ represents the consonant cluster /ks/. In some archaic local variants of the Greek alphabet, this letter was missing. Instead, especially in the dialects of most of the Greek mainland and Euboea, the cluster /ks/ was represented by Χ (which in classical Greek is chi, used for {{#invoke:IPA|main}}).

Because this variant of the Greek alphabet was used in Magna Graecia (the Greek colonies in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula), the Latin alphabet borrowed Χ rather than Ξ as the Latin letter that represented the /ks/ cluster that was also present in Latin.

CyrillicEdit

Xi was adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet as the letter ksi (Ѯ ѯ). It was ultimately removed from the Russian alphabet in 1735.

Mathematics and scienceEdit

UppercaseEdit

The uppercase letter Ξ is used as a symbol in various contexts.

Pure mathematicsEdit

PhysicsEdit

Other usesEdit

LowercaseEdit

The lowercase letter ξ is used as a symbol for:

Pure mathematicsEdit

Physics and astronomyEdit

Other usesEdit

Other usesEdit

File:Net Serviços de Comunicação.svg
Ξ for E in a commercial logo

Uppercase Ξ is used as an 'E' to stylise company names/logos like Razer (styled as RΛZΞR), Tesla (styled as TΞSLA), the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden (styled as BIDΞN), musician Banners (styled as BANNΞRS), and in South Korean boy group ZE:A's newest logo (styled as "ZΞA") (Compare: Heavy Metal umlaut; Faux Cyrillic)

UnicodeEdit

Unicode Code Charts: Greek and Coptic (Range: 0370-03FF)

Template:Notelist

ReferencesEdit

<references/>

External linksEdit

Template:Sister project