Digamma
/daɪˈɡæmə/noun
An archaic Greek letter Ϝ, used for the sound /w/ and later as the numeral six.
Did you know?Digamma vanished from the classical Greek alphabet but survived in Greek numerals as the sign for six, often written in a later form called stigma.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*dwóh
“Two; the ancient root behind Greek di-.”
Archaic Greek
Greek
Ϝ / ϝ
“A letter representing the consonant /w/, inherited from an earlier Greek alphabet tradition.”
Archaic Greek
Greek
δίγαμμα (digamma)
““Two gammas,” named for its visual resemblance to two stacked gamma-like forms.”
Classical Greek
Greek
δίγαμμα
“The obsolete letter /w/, no longer pronounced in most standard Greek dialects.”
Hellenistic Greek
Greek
ϛ
“A transformed form of digamma used as the numeral six.”
Modern English
English
digamma
“The name of the archaic Greek letter and its numeral or linguistic sign.”