HOW TO PRONOUNCE
tau
/taʊ/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:25
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What does tau mean?
noun
- The letter Τ /τ in the Greek alphabet; being the nineteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek, and the twenty-first letter of the Old and Ancient Greek alphabets.
- Alternative form of taw; the 22nd and last letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic.
- A Τ-shaped object or sign; a Saint Anthony's cross, sometimes regarded as a sacred symbol.
More meanings (11)
noun
- A crosier with a Τ-shaped head.
- The ankh symbol (☥).
- Chiefly written τ: used to designate the nineteenth star (usually according to brightness) in a constellation.
- A measurement of the sensitivity of the value of an option to changes in the implied volatility of the price of the underlying asset.
- Chiefly written τ: an irrational and transcendental constant representing the ratio of the circumference of a Euclidean circle to its radius, equal to twice the value of pi (2π; approximately 6.2831853071).
- Ellipsis of tau protein (“a protein abundant especially in the neurons of the human central nervous system that stabilizes microtubules, and when misfolded is associated with forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases”).
- Ellipsis of tau lepton or tau particle (“an unstable elementary particle which is a type of lepton, having a mass almost twice that of a proton, a negative charge, and a spin of ½; it decays into hadrons (usually pions) or other leptons, and neutrinos; a tauon”).
- Abbreviation of treatment as usual.
- (historical) Ellipsis of tau meson, now known as a kaon.
proper noun
- A surname from Chinese.
- Initialism of Transvaal Agricultural Union.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/taʊ/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure are one, And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
They are said to be cunning in sorcery (TAU TEPANG), and these persons may properly be said to be sorcerers or witches.
More book examples (2)
The man bore a writer's ink-horn upon his loins, who set a mark Tau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry, Ezechiel ix.; teaching in a figure that if any lack skill in writing, he shall not undertake the task of preaching repentance.
And if ye will wit of their A.B.C. what letters they be, here ye may see them, with the names that they clepe them there amongst them: Alpha, Betha, Gama, Deltha, εlonge, ε brevis, Epilmon, Thetha, Iota, Kapda, Lapda, Mi, Ni, Xi, ο brevis, Pi, Coph, Ro, Summa, Tau, Vi, Fy, Chi, Psi, Othomega, Diacosyn.