Tau

Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha Νν Nu Ββ Beta Ξξ Xi Γγ Gamma Οο Omicron Δδ Delta Ππ Pi Εε Epsilon Ρρ Rho Ζζ Zeta Σσς Sigma Ηη Eta Ττ Tau Θθ Theta Υυ Upsilon Ιι Iota Φφ Phi Κκ Kappa Χχ Chi Λλ Lambda Ψψ Psi Μμ Mu Ωω Omega
History
Archaic local variants Ϝ Ͱ Ϻ Ϙ Ͳ Ͷ tsan digamma Diacritics Ligatures Numerals ϛ (6) ϟ (90) ϡ (900)
Use in other languages
Bactrian Coptic Albanian
Related topics
Use as scientific symbols
Category
v t e

Tau (/ˈtɔː, ˈtɒ, ˈtaʊ/;^[1] uppercase Τ, lowercase τ or ${\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\tau }}}$; Greek: ταυ [taf]) is the nineteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless dental or alveolar plosive IPA: [t]. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 300.

The name in English is pronounced /taʊ/ or /tɔː/,^[2] but in Greek it is [taf].^[3][4] This is because the pronunciation of the combination of Greek letters αυ can have the pronunciation of either [ai], [av] or [af], depending on what follows and if a diaeresis is present on the second vowel (see Greek orthography).

Tau was derived from the Phoenician letter taw (𐤕).^[5] Letters that arose from tau include Roman T and Cyrillic Te (Т, т).

The letter occupies the Unicode slots U+03C4 (lowercase) and U+03A4 (uppercase). In HTML, they can be produced with named entities (τ and Τ), decimal references (τ and Τ), or hexadecimal references (τ and Τ).