Waw
/wɑːv/noun
The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also known as vav, traditionally representing the consonant /w/ or /v/.
Did you know?Waw’s Phoenician ancestor was shaped like a hook, and the same letter lineage passed through Greek digamma into the Latin ancestor of modern F.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic
*waw
“A letter name probably connected with “hook” or a hooked form”
10th–8th Century BCE
Phoenician
𐤅 waw
“The sixth consonantal letter, representing /w/ and shaped like a hook”
Ancient Hebrew
Hebrew
ו waw
“The sixth letter of the alphabet, representing /w/”
Ancient Greek
Greek
ϝ digamma
“An obsolete letter derived from Phoenician waw, representing /w/”
Classical Latin
Latin
F
“A letter ultimately developing through Greek digamma from the waw lineage”
Modern English
English
waw
“A name for the Hebrew letter ו, also spelled vav”