tau

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• Received-Pronunciation: /taʊ/
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• Received-Pronunciation: /tɔː/
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• General-American: /taʊ/
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• General-American: /tɔ/
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• rhymes with -aʊ
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• rhymes with -ɔː
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Variant of Tao.

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.

36 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Arabic: تَاو (tāw) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Asturian: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Catalan: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Chinese Mandarin: 陶 (táo) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Chinese Mandarin: 套 (tào) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Czech: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Danish: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Dutch: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Esperanto: taŭo — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Finnish: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• French: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Georgian: ტაუ (ṭau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• German: Tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Greek: ταυ (taf) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Ancient Greek: ταῦ (taû) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Hebrew: טָאוּ (tau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Hungarian: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Icelandic: tá — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Interlingua: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Italian: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Japanese: タウ (tau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Korean: 타우 (tau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Malay: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Norwegian Bokmål: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Norwegian Nynorsk: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Polish: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Portuguese: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Russian: тау (tau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Spanish: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Swedish: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Thai: เทา (tao) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Ukrainian: тау (tau) — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• Welsh: tau — the letter Τ / τ in the Greek alphabet
• French: croix en tau — Saint Anthony’s cross — see also Saint Anthony's cross
• German: Taukreuz — Saint Anthony’s cross — see also Saint Anthony's cross
• French: tau — ellipsis of tau protein — see also tau protein