aitch

See also: 'aitch, Aitch, and Aitch.

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English ache, borrowed from Old French ache, from Vulgar Latin *acca. (Compare Italian acca.) The source is unclear, but may descend from the vowelless alphabetic sequence ha ka 'H, K' (becoming [aka] when the [h] ceased to be pronounced), as K had low frequency in Late Latin.[1] Doublet of ecchi.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: āch, IPA(key): /ˈeɪt͡ʃ/
  • Audio (Southern England)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪtʃ

Noun

aitch (plural aitches)

  1. The name of the Latin-script letter H/h.
    • 1773 October, The Monthly Review Or Literary Journal Enlarged:
      The word length, which contains only four sounds l e ng th, is usually spell'd thus, el ee en gee tee aitch.
    • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 257:
      "If you've got any drawing-room manners, or a dislike to eating peas with a knife or dropping aitches, you'd better chuck 'em away. They ain't no further use."
    • 1959, Anthony Burgess, Beds in the East (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 469:
      She frowned, hearing Lim Cheng Po's voice, so English, so refined, so very English upper-class. And often she had had to tell Joe about his aitches.
    The word hour is written with a silent aitch.
    Cockneys drop their aitches.

Usage notes

Derived terms

Descendants
  • → Arabic: إِتْش (ʔitš)
  • → Greek: έιτς (éits)
  • → Japanese: エイチ (eichi), dated エッチ (etchi)
  • → Korean: 에이치 (eichi)
  • → Malay: hec
  • → Persian: اِچ (eč, “English letter H”), اِیچ (eyč, “English letter H”)
  • → Russian: эйч (ejč, “English letter H”)
  • → Tagalog: eyts
  • → Thai: เอช (éech), เฮช (héech)

Translations

See also

References
  1. Liberman, Anatoly (2013 August 7) “Alphabet soup, part 2: H and Y”, in Oxford Etymologist‎, Oxford University Press, retrieved 3 October 2013

Anagrams

Scots

Alternative forms

Etymology

Orthographically from English aitch, but phonetically a regular reflex of Middle English ache, from Old French ache, from Vulgar Latin *acca, probably an extension of earlier ha, from an unindentified source.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /etʃ/

Numeral

aitch (plural aitches)

  1. The name of the Latin-script letter H/h.

References
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.