omicron
/ˈoʊməˌkɹɑn/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.35 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The 15th letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabets (16th in Ancient and Old Greek), used in ordering lists as in naming (astronomy) the 15th star of a constellation or (epidemiology) the 15th discovered major variant of a disease.
name
Ellipsis of Omicron Hill: a mountain in North Slope borough, Alaska, United States.
Example Sentences
- "Your Majestie knows that unfortunate I [...] was the first who when I published my Poem of Italia Liberata endeavoured to bring the Omicron, Eupselon, Omega, and other Greek Letters, which I thought very requisite for that language, into my own Tongue;"
- "The E serves both for the Epsilon and Eta; the O, both for the Omicron and Omega, and likewise for the diphthong OΥ."
- "... They include Mira itself (omicron Ceti) which can be seen shortly before dawn."
- "There are now seven “variants of interest” or “variants of concern” and they each have a Greek letter, according to a W.H.O. tracking page. Some other variants with Greek letters do not reach those classification levels, and the W.H.O. also skipped two letters just before Omicron — “Nu” and “Xi” — leading to speculation about whether “Xi” was avoided in deference to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping."
Etymology
From Latin omicron, from Koine Greek ὂ μῑκρόν (ò mīkrón, “little o”), named in contrast with omega (“big o”). The uncommon form omicra is similarly borrowed from Latin and Greek. The use for designating stars in a constellation—typically in order of apparent brightness—began with Johann Bayer's 1603 Uranometria.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: omicron, ὂ μῑκρόν
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈoʊməˌkɹɑn/
- British English: /ˈɒmɪkɹɒn/