Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

tau

/taʊ/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.29 in modern English

Syllables
tau
IPA
/taʊ/
3
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars

Meaning

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.

noun

The ankh symbol (☥).

noun

A measurement of the sensitivity of the value of an option to changes in the implied volatility of the price of the underlying asset.

noun

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).

Example Sentences

Etymology

From Middle English tau, taue, from Latin tau, from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû) and Hebrew תָּו (tav). Sense 7 was used by Joseph M. Lindenberg in 1991, and popularized by the American educator and entrepreneur Michael Hartl in a 2010 paper which explains that τ resembles π; and that τ is the Greek equivalent of t, the first letter of turn, and 2π corresponds to one turn of a circle with a radius of one unit. Sense 8.1 (“ellipsis of tau lepton or tau particle”) was coined by the American physicist Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) after the first letter of Ancient Greek τρίτον (tríton, “third”), since the tau lepton or tauon was the third charged lepton discovered.

Origin

Word Breakdown

  • Root: tau, ταῦ, תָּו

Regional Pronunciation

  • American English: /taʊ/
  • British English: /taʊ/

Usage

Inflected Forms

Derived Forms

Phrases

Frequently Paired Words

Synonyms

Rhymes With

Questions

How do you pronounce tau?
The recorded pronunciation is /taʊ/.
What does tau mean?
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.
Where does tau come from?
It is traced to Middle English.

How to pronounce tau

  1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “tau”.
  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/taʊ/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
  3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “tau”.
  4. Repeat and practice — Say “tau” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.