V (letter)

V, v is a letter of the Latin alphabet. It is the twenty-second letter of most variants, being placed after U and before W, as is the case for instance in the English alphabet. Its English name is pronounced [ˈviː], vee.

V is also the Roman numeral representing the number 5.

The phoneme /v/ occurs in many languages, but is absent in many others; many speakers may substitute some kind of [b] or [u]. For example, Japanese makes use of both: ウイルス uirusu 'virus' and ライブ raibu 'live'.

Use in English

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z
Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list
Common misspellings

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v is a labiodental fricative, partially or completely voiced, air passing between the lower lip and upper front teeth as they touch. It differs from f only in that the vocal folds vibrate, which does not occur for f: compare vîle and fîle (the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English spellings). This is in contrast to w, where both lips are used without touching each other or any teeth: compare vèil cover = vâle valley and, rhyming, wâil cry. The v sound involves more friction as air passes through the mouth; for w the lips are further apart, making the sound more vowel-like. Examples: vúlgar, véry, vāst, háve, wâve, and finally in spív, Slàv, dërv.

v is rare at the end of a word, and it is most commonly found in that position pronounced f in Slavonic (i.e. Russian, Bulgarian, etc.) names: Rachmáninov, Prokófiev, Medvédev *Midvyédiff, Krùshchev (-chóff), Mólotov; it is also in Névsky (pronounced v) and Tchaikóvsky (usually pronounced f).

Being rare at the end, v hardly ever needs to be doubled, though it does sometimes have to be to avoid changing the vowel sound, as in révved úp thê éngine, to avoid "rêved", and spívvery, to avoid "spîvery". v does not normally have to be doubled after a preceding short vowel (usually é): séven, cléver, héaven, éver, évery, séver, bévy, lòver, drível, cívil. But it doubles before final y to emphasise that the preceding vowel is short: chívvy, sávvy (compare chîves and nâvy). So flívver is unusual, and it rhymes with ríver.

The preceding vowel is long in: êven, fêver, hâver, fâvour, sâviour, ôver, clôver, drîver, dîver, wâver, hâven and Stêven (= the more regular spelling of Stêphen, which does not have an f sound).

As v rarely ends words, so it rarely occurs before consonants; it does, though, in the French word for Âpril, adopted as a girl's name, Ávril.

v occurs after s to signify a whistled consonant in words from the Shona language, as in Masvíngo and Mǒrgan Tsvángiraî. English-speakers often pronounce the latter name as *Chángiraî.

Scientific uses

• V: volt, unit of electric potential (difference)
• v: velocity
• V: vanadium