The eleventh letter of the Latin alphabet, K, or k comes from the Greek Κ or κ (Kappa) developed from the Semitic Kap, symbol for an open hand. The Semitic soundish value /k/ was maintained in most Classic as well as Modern Languages, although Latin abandoned K almost completely, preferring C. Therefore, the Romance languages have K only in foreign words. Its name in English is kay.
In the International phonetic alphabet, [k] is the symbol for the voiceless velar plosive.
Alternative representations
Kilo represents the letter K in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
In international Morse code the letter K is DahDitDah: - · -
In Braille the letter K is represented as ⠅ (in Unicode), the dot pattern,
X.
..
X.
Computing
In Unicode the capital K is codepoint U+004B and the lowercase k is U+006B.
The ASCII code for capital K is 75 and for lowercase k is 107; or in binary 01001011 and 01101011, correspondingly.
The EBCDIC code for capital K is 210, and for lowercase k, 146.
The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "K" and "k" for upper and lower case respectively.
Meanings for K
- In accounting and investment banking, K = 1000 (similar to the use in the SI system below).
- In baseball, K is the abbreviation for strikeout.
- In biochemistry, K is the symbol for the amino acid lysine.
- In Boolean algebra, a K-map is an abbreviation for a Karnaugh map.
- In chemistry,
- In chess, K is a notation symbol for the king piece.
- In the CMYK color model, K stands for the color black.
- In commerce, a circled K, Ⓚ, on a food product indicates kosher certification.
- In combinatory logic of computer science, K is the name of a fundamental combinator, the constant function.
- In computing,
- In economics, K is the abbreviation for capital.
- In engineering, K is an abbreviation denoting a kip (1k = 1000 pound force).
- In English slang, K is an abbreviation for ketamine.
- In finance, K is the New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol for the Kellogg Company.
- In Hong Kong slang, K is the abbreviation for karaoke.
- In gold, K is the abbreviation for karat (in the American spelling).
- In international license plate codes, K stands for Cambodia.
- In internet slang, K stands for okay.
- In law, K is a common abbreviation for contract.
- In library science, K is the Library of Congress classification designation for books about law.
- In logic, K is the simplest system of modal logic (K stands for "Kripke").
- In mathematics, Kn denotes the complete graph on n vertices.
- In music, K. numbers identify the compositions of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the catalog compiled by Ludwig von Köchel (sometimes abbreviated K.V., standing for Köchel-Verzeichnis). K. numbers are also used to identify the compositions of Domenico Scarlatti in the catalog compiled by Ralph Kirkpatrick. K is also an album by Kula Shaker.
- In nutrition, K is a vitamin which is essential in blood coagulation (or, as it is known in German, koagulation, thus the name).
- In physics,
- In a deck of playing cards, the letter K is used to mark each of the kings.
- In politics, K refers to the Keskustapuolue (Centre Party of Finland).
- K can be short for the record label K Records.
- As the first letter of a postal code,
- In radio communication
- In semiconductors, electronics, and physics, it is the symbol for the dielectric constant. See Low-K.
- In the SI system (the metric system),
- k is an SI prefix denoting 103 = 1,000 (one thousand). Consequently, the letter K can be used in spoken conversation to mean "thousand". Compare with use as a binary prefix in computing above.
- K is the symbol for the SI base unit for temperature, the kelvin.
- In World War II, K was the designation for Japanese Navy trainer aircraft.