# Eth

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Latin-script letter (Ð ð)

"Edh" redirects here. For other uses, see [Eth (disambiguation)](/source/Eth_(disambiguation)) and [Edh (disambiguation)](/source/Edh_(disambiguation)). "-D" redirects here, and thus, for [technical reasons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(technical_restrictions)), ":-D" also redirects here. For the smiley, see [Emoticon](/source/Emoticon). For the sound represented by /ð/ in the IPA, see [Voiced dental fricative](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative). Not to be confused with [D with stroke](/source/D_with_stroke) or [African D](/source/African_D).

Ð Ð ð Usage Writing system Latin script Type Alphabetic and logographic Language of origin Old English Old Norse Sound values [ð] [θ] [ð̠] /ɛð/ In Unicode U+00D0, U+00F0 History Development Δ δ 𐌃 D d Ꝺ ꝺ Ð ð Time period ~800 to present Sisters None Transliterations d Other Associated graphs th, dh Writing direction Left-to-Right This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This page uses [IPA](/source/International_Phonetic_Alphabet) notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis. For the meaning of  how ⟨ ⟩, | |, / /, and [ ] are used here, see [this page](/source/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Brackets_and_transcription_delimiters).

Eth in [Arial](/source/Arial) and [Times New Roman](/source/Times_New_Roman)

**Ð** ([minuscule](/source/Minuscule): **ð**), known as **eth** or **edh**,[a] is a [Latin-script](/source/Latin_script) letter. It is present in the [Old English](/source/Old_English_orthography), [Middle English](/source/Middle_English_orthography), [Icelandic](/source/Icelandic_orthography), [Faroese](/source/Faroese_orthography) (in which it is called *edd*), and [Elfdalian](/source/Elfdalian_alphabet) alphabets.

It was also used in [Scandinavia](/source/Scandinavia) during the [Middle Ages](/source/Middle_Ages), but was subsequently replaced with ⟨[dh](/source/Dh_(digraph))⟩, and later ⟨[d](/source/D)⟩.

It is often [transliterated](/source/Transliteration) as ⟨d⟩.

The lowercase version has been adopted to represent a [voiced dental fricative](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative) ([IPA](/source/International_Phonetic_Alphabet): [[ð](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative)]) in the [International Phonetic Alphabet](/source/International_Phonetic_Alphabet).

## Faroese

In [Faroese](/source/Faroese_language), ⟨ð⟩ is not assigned to any particular phoneme and appears mostly for etymological reasons, but it indicates most [glides](/source/Semivowel). When ⟨ð⟩ appears before ⟨r⟩, it is in a few words pronounced [ɡ]. In the [Faroese alphabet](/source/Faroese_alphabet), ⟨ð⟩ follows ⟨d⟩.

## Khmer

⟨Ð⟩ is sometimes used in [Khmer](/source/Khmer_language) romanization to represent ឍ **thô**.

## Icelandic

A sample of Icelandic handwriting with some instances of lowercase *ð* clearly visible: in the words **[Borðum](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bor%C3%B0um)**, **[við](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vi%C3%B0)** and **[niður](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ni%C3%B0ur)**. Also visible is a [thorn](/source/Thorn_(letter)) in the word **[því](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%BEv%C3%AD)**.

In [Icelandic](/source/Icelandic_language), ⟨ð⟩, called "eð", represents an [alveolar](/source/Alveolar_consonant) non-[sibilant](/source/Sibilant) [fricative](/source/Fricative), voiced [[ð̠](/source/Voiced_alveolar_non-sibilant_fricative)] intervocalically and word-finally, and voiceless [[θ̠](/source/Voiceless_alveolar_non-sibilant_fricative)] otherwise, which form one phoneme, /θ/. Generally, /θ/ is represented by [thorn](/source/Thorn_(letter)) ⟨Þ⟩ at the beginning of words and by ⟨ð⟩ elsewhere. The ⟨ð⟩ in the name of the letter is devoiced in the nominative and accusative cases: [ɛθ̠]. In the [Icelandic alphabet](/source/Icelandic_alphabet), ⟨ð⟩ follows ⟨d⟩.

## Norwegian

In [Olav Jakobsen Høyem](/source/Olav_Jakobsen_H%C3%B8yem)'s version of *[Nynorsk](/source/Nynorsk)* based on *[Trøndersk](/source/Tr%C3%B8ndersk)*, ⟨ð⟩ was always silent, and was introduced for etymological reasons.

## Old English

In Old English, ⟨ð⟩ was used interchangeably with ⟨[þ](/source/Thorn_(letter))⟩ to represent the Old English [dental](/source/Dental_consonant) [fricative](/source/Fricative) [phoneme](/source/Phoneme) /[θ](/source/Voiceless_dental_fricative)/ or its [allophone](/source/Allophone) [[ð](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative)], which exist in modern [English](/source/English_phonology) as the [voiceless](/source/Voiceless_dental_fricative) and [voiced](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative) dental fricatives both now spelled ⟨[th](/source/Th_(digraph))⟩.

Scholars disagree on what the Anglo-Saxons would have called this letter. Fred Robison argues that BM M.S. Stowe 57 provides *ðæt* as the native Old English letter name.[1] Vincent P. McCarren and Robert N. Mory, however, write that it "seems equally likely that [...] the ð was intended as an abbreviation for the word ðaet rather than the name of the letter."[2]

Unlike the [runic](/source/Runic) letter ⟨[þ](/source/%C3%9E)⟩, ⟨ð⟩ is a modified [Roman](/source/Roman_cursive) letter. Neither ⟨ð⟩ nor ⟨þ⟩ was found in the earliest records of [Old English](/source/Old_English). A study of [Mercian](/source/Mercia) [royal diplomas](/source/Anglo-Saxon_charters) found that ⟨ð⟩ began to emerge in the early 8th century, with ⟨ð⟩ becoming strongly preferred by the 780s.[3] Another source indicates that the letter is "derived from [Irish writing](/source/Insular_script)".[4]

Under the reign of [King Alfred the Great](/source/Alfred_the_Great), ⟨þ⟩ grew greatly in popularity and started to overtake ⟨ð⟩, and did so completely by the [Middle English](/source/Middle_English) period. ⟨þ⟩ in turn went obsolete by the [Early Modern English](/source/Early_Modern_English) period, mostly due to the rise of the [printing press](/source/Printing_press),[5] and was replaced by the digraph ⟨th⟩.

## Welsh

⟨Ð⟩ has also been used by some in written [Welsh](/source/Welsh_language) to represent /ð/, which is normally represented as ⟨dd⟩.[6]

## Phonetic transcription

- /ð/ (U+00F0) represents a [voiced dental fricative](/source/Voiced_dental_fricative) in the [International Phonetic Alphabet](/source/International_Phonetic_Alphabet).

- /ᶞ/ (U+1D9E) is used in phonetic transcription.[7]

- ᴆ (U+1D06) is used in the [Uralic Phonetic Alphabet](/source/Uralic_Phonetic_Alphabet).[8]

## Computer encoding

See also: [Unicode input](/source/Unicode_input) and [Alt codes](/source/Alt_codes)

Upper and lower case forms of eth have [Unicode](/source/Unicode) encodings:

- U+00D0 Ð LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ETH (Ð)

- U+00F0 ð LATIN SMALL LETTER ETH (ð)

These Unicode [codepoints](/source/Codepoint) were inherited from [ISO/IEC 8859-1](/source/ISO%2FIEC_8859-1) ("ISO Latin-1") encoding.

## Modern uses

- A capital eth is used as the [currency symbol](/source/Currency_symbol) for [Dogecoin](/source/Dogecoin), a cryptocurrency.

## See also

- [African D](/source/African_D) – Variant of the Latin letter D used in African alphabets

- [D](/source/D)

- [D with stroke](/source/D_with_stroke) – Variant of the letter D

- [Insular script](/source/Insular_script) – Medieval writing system common to Ireland and England

- [T](/source/T)

- [Thorn](/source/Thorn_(letter)) – Letter of Old English and some Scandinavian languages

## Notes

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Also called **eð**.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Robinson, Fred (1973). ["Syntactical Glosses in Latin Manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon Provenance"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2854443). *Speculum*. **48** (3): 450–451.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** McCarren, Vincent; Mory, Robert (1990). ["The 'Abecedarium' from British Museum Cotton MS. Titus D 18"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/438244). *Modern Philology*. **87** (3): 270.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** Shaw, Philip (2013). "Adapting the Roman alphabet for writing Old English: evidence from coin epigraphy and single-sheet charters". *[Early Medieval Europe](/source/Early_Medieval_Europe_(journal))*. **21** (2): 115–139. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1111/emed.12012](https://doi.org/10.1111%2Femed.12012). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [163075636](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:163075636).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Freeborn, Dennis (1992). [*From Old English to Standard English*](https://books.google.com/books?id=CP16STG5NRUC). London: Macmillan. p. 24. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780776604695](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780776604695).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Hill_6-0)** Hill, Will (30 June 2020). ["Chapter 25: Typography and the printed English text"](https://web.archive.org/web/20220710022857/https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf) (PDF). *The Routledge Handbook of the English Writing System*. Taylor & Francis. p. 6. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780367581565](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780367581565). Archived from [the original](https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/703215/1/25HillFinalDV.pdf) (PDF) on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 7 July 2022. The types used by Caxton and his contemporaries originated in Holland and Belgium, and did not provide for the continuing use of elements of the Old English alphabet such as thorn <þ>, eth <ð>, and yogh <ʒ>. The substitution of visually similar typographic forms has led to some anomalies which persist to this day in the reprinting of archaic texts and the spelling of regional words. The widely misunderstood 'ye' occurs through a habit of printer's usage that originates in Caxton's time, when printers would substitute the <y> (often accompanied by a superscript <e>) in place of the thorn <þ> or the eth <ð>, both of which were used to denote both the voiced and non-voiced sounds, /ð/ and /θ/ (Anderson, D. (1969) The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, p 169)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** [*Testament Newydd (1567)*](https://web.archive.org/web/20120129065239/http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/dwew2/hcwl/t/webconc/t100.htm) [*The 1567 New Testament*], archived from [the original](http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/dwew2/hcwl/t/webconc/t100.htm) on 2012-01-29, retrieved 2011-01-30.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-L204132_8-0)** Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). ["L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS"](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf) (PDF).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** [Everson, Michael](/source/Michael_Everson); et al. (2002-03-20). ["L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS"](https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf) (PDF).

## Further reading

- [Ladefoged, Peter](/source/Peter_Ladefoged); [Maddieson, Ian](/source/Ian_Maddieson) (1996). [*The Sounds of the World's Languages*](/source/The_Sounds_of_the_World's_Languages). Oxford: Blackwell. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-631-19815-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-631-19815-6).

- Pétursson, Magnus (1971), "Étude de la réalisation des consonnes islandaises þ, ð, s, dans la prononciation d'un sujet islandais à partir de la radiocinématographie" [Study of the realisation of Icelandic consonants þ, ð, s, in the pronunciation of an Icelandic subject from radiocinematography], *Phonetica*, **33** (4): 203–216, [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1159/000259344](https://doi.org/10.1159%2F000259344), [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [145316121](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:145316121)

## External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to [Ð](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C3%90).

Look up ***[eth](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search/eth)*** in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

- "Thorn and eth: how to get them right", [*Operinan*](https://web.archive.org/web/20190726172725/http://66.147.242.192/~operinan/2/2.11/index.htm), Briem, archived from [the original](http://66.147.242.192/~operinan/2/2.11/index.htm) on 2019-07-26, retrieved 2010-08-22

- "Älvdalsk ortografi", [*Förslag till en enhetlig stavning för älvdalska*](https://web.archive.org/web/20070206111237/http://www.alvdalen.se/alvdalska/alvdalsk_ortografi.pdf) (PDF) (in Swedish), February 2007, archived from [the original](http://www.alvdalen.se/alvdalska/alvdalsk_ortografi.pdf) (PDF) on 6 February 2007.

v t e Latin script History Spread Romanization Roman numerals Ligatures Alphabets (list) Classical Latin alphabet ISO basic Latin alphabet Phonetic alphabets International Phonetic Alphabet X-SAMPA Spelling alphabet Letters (list) Letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz Additional Latin letters Æ æ Ɑ ɑ Ʌ ʌ Ꞵ ꞵ Ð ð Ɛ ɛ Ə ə Ǝ ə Ɣ ɣ Ƣ ƣ Ɩ ɩ Ɥ ɥ Ꟛ ꟛ Ŋ ŋ Œ œ Ɔ ɔ Ɤ ɤ Kʼ ĸ Ʀ ʀ ẞ ß Ʃ ʃ Ɯ ɯ Ʊ ʊ Ꞷ ꞷ Ʋ ʋ Ƿ ƿ Ȝ ȝ ϴ θ Ʒ ʒ Ƹ ƹ Þ þ Ȣ ȣ Ꭓ ꭓ Ɂ ʔ ɂ ꟎ ʕ ꟏ ǀ ǁ ǂ ǃ ʘ ʻ ʼ Ꞌ ꞌ Ƨ ƨ Ꜫ ꜫ Ꜭ ꜭ Ƽ ƽ Ƅ ƅ 7 Letter D with diacritics Ďď Ḋḋ Ḑḑ D̦d̦ Ḍḍ Ḓḓ Ḏḏ Đđ Ðð Ɖɖ ᶑ Ꟈꟈ Ɗɗ 𝼥 ᵭ ᶁ ᶑ ȡ Multigraphs Digraphs Ch Dz Dž Gh IJ Lj Ll Ly Nh Nj Ny Sh Sz Th Trigraphs dzs eau Tetragraphs ough Keyboard layouts (list) QWERTY QWERTZ AZERTY Dvorak Colemak BÉPO Neo Historical standards ISO/IEC 646 Western Latin character sets Current standards Unicode DIN 91379: Unicode subset for Europe Lists Precomposed Latin characters in Unicode Letters used in mathematics, science, and engineering List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks Diacritics Palaeography

v t e History of English Proto-Indo-European Proto-Germanic Proto-West-Germanic Anglo-Frisian languages Old English Kentish Mercian Northumbrian West Saxon Anglo-Norman language Middle English Early Modern English Modern English Phonological history Vowels A Changes before historical /l/ Changes before historical /r/ Close back vowels Close front vowels Diphthongs Great Vowel Shift Open back vowels Trisyllabic laxing Consonants Clusters Flapping H-dropping L-vocalization Ng Rhoticity T-glottalization Th fronting stopping Wh

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Eth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eth?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.