O
noun
the fifteenth letter of the English alphabet, a vowel.
Jump To:
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O
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o'
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O'
O'a prefix meaning “descendant,” in Irish family names.
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o-
o-an abridgment of ortho-.
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-o
-oa suffix occurring as the final element in informal shortenings of nouns (ammo; combo; condo; limo; promo ); -o also forms nouns, usually derogatory, for persons or things exemplifying or associated with that specified by the base noun or adjective (cheapo; pinko; sicko; weirdo; wino ).
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o.
o.abbreviationpint.
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-o-
-o-the typical ending of the first element of compounds of Greek origin (as -i- is, in compounds of Latin origin), used regularly in forming new compounds with elements of Greek origin and often used in English as a connective irrespective of etymology.
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O.
O.abbreviation(in prescriptions) a pint.
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o
onounthe 15th letter and fourth vowel of the modern English alphabet
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O'-
O'-prefix(in surnames of Irish Gaelic origin) descendant of
O
1 American
[oh]
/ oʊ /
Or
o
noun
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O's,
plural
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Os,
plural
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o's,
plural
-
os,
plural
-
oes
plural
-
the fifteenth letter of the English alphabet, a vowel.
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any spoken sound represented by the letter O or o, as in box, note, short, or love .
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something having the shape of an O .
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a written or printed representation of the letter O or o.
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a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter O or o.
O
2
American
[oh]
/ oʊ /
interjection
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(used before a name in direct address, especially in solemn or poetic language, to lend earnestness to an appeal).
Hear, O Israel!
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(used as an expression of surprise, pain, annoyance, longing, gladness, etc.)
noun
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O's
plural
O
3
American
O
4
American
Symbol.
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the fifteenth in order or in a series.
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the Arabic cipher; zero.
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(sometimes lowercase) the medieval Roman numeral for 11.
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Physiology. a major blood group, usually enabling a person whose blood is of this type to donate blood to persons of group O, A, B, or AB and to receive blood from persons of group O.
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Chemistry. oxygen.
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Logic. particular negative.
o'
5
American
[uh, oh]
/ ə, oʊ /
O'
6
American
o-
7
American
Chemistry.
o-
8
American
o-
9
American
-o
10
American
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a suffix occurring as the final element in informal shortenings of nouns (ammo; combo; condo; limo; promo ); -o also forms nouns, usually derogatory, for persons or things exemplifying or associated with that specified by the base noun or adjective (cheapo; pinko; sicko; weirdo; wino ).
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a suffix occurring in colloquial noun or adjective derivatives, usually grammatically isolated, as in address.
cheerio; kiddo; neato; righto.
o.
11
American
abbreviation
o.
12
American
abbreviation
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octavo.
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off.
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old.
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only.
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order.
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Baseball. out; outs.
-o-
13
American
O.
14
American
abbreviation
O.
15
American
abbreviation
-
Ocean.
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octavo.
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October.
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Ohio.
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Old.
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Ontario.
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Oregon.
O
1
British
symbol
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chem oxygen
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a human blood type of the ABO group See universal donor
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logic a particular negative categorial proposition, such as some men are not married: often symbolized as SoP Compare A E I 2
abbreviation
o
2
British
/ əʊ /
noun
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the 15th letter and fourth vowel of the modern English alphabet
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any of several speech sounds represented by this letter, in English as in code, pot, cow, move, or form
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another name for nought
O
3
British
/ əʊ /
interjection
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a variant spelling of oh
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an exclamation introducing an invocation, entreaty, wish, etc
O God!
O for the wings of a dove!
O'-
4
British
prefix
-o
5
British
suffix
-o-
6
British
o-
7
British
prefix
o'
8
British
/ ə /
preposition
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of O2
First recorded in 1125–75; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin ō
Origin of o'5
From Middle English; by shortening
Origin of O'6
Representing Irish ó descendant, Old Irish au
Origin of -o10
Perhaps originally the interjection O, appended to words as in -o def. 2; as a derivational suffix reinforced by clipped forms of words with -o- as a linking element (e.g., photo, stereo ), by Rom nouns ending in o, and by personal nouns such as bimbo and bozo, of obscure origin
Origin of o.11
From the Latin word octārius
Origin of -o-13
Middle English (< Old French ) < Latin < Greek
Origin of O.14
From the Latin word octārius
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The MAL story also illustrates how much complexity is hidden behind the familiar letters A, B, AB and O.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
It offers a sports-themed way of approaching the topic, called GOALS, representing G: get ready; O: open the conversation; A: ask the question; L: listen and respond and S: support and signpost.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
Up until the Big O, I’ve lived by that rule.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Test your knowledge of the English language: How many words can you create with the letters P, Y, C, R, O, and T?
From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026
O Burr, O Burr, what has thou done?
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
The third, on “I’m Doun for Lack o’ Johnnie,” is the emotional focal point of the Fantasy, a lament both intimate and universal.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
It was the world premiere of the medley, which was arranged by Stuart Calvert, and also featured traditional songs like The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond.
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2026
“Coffee badging”—going to the office just long enough to show your face and grab a cup o’ joe—was a popular workaround.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025
These sea snails are also voracious predators themselves and feast upon free-floating hydrozoan such as Velella velella and Portuguese man o’ war.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2025
We ran by Gibraltar wi’oot bein’ able to signal; an’ till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o’ aught.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Former basketball player Shaquille O’ Neal is also a high-profile investor.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 19, 2025
But Heart O’ the Hills confirmed that its camp director, Jane Ragsdale, is one of the flood’s victims .
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2025
Girls summer camp Heart O’ the Hills is just a mile north of Camp Mystic.
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2025
The 55-year-old, who is also known as Thomas O'Brien or Tam O' Braan, rented a former sheep farm near Loch Tay and began spinning "elaborate lies" to customers.
From BBC ● May 29, 2025
After a single trip to the supermarket, the refrigerator and the cupboards fill with familiar labels: Skippy, Hood, Bumble Bee, Land O’ Lakes.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
At week's end a Russian delegation got the signatures of the leaders of Kazakhstan on a similar agreement-to-try-t o- agree.
From Time Magazine Archive
And trewelie, if there be any // and in no o- good in them, it is either lerned, borowed, or // ther tong. stolne, from some one of those worthie wittes of Athens.
From The Schoolmaster by Roger Ascham
Phenol-2,4-disulphonic acid is prepared from o- or p-phenolsulphonic acid, whereas phenol-2,4,6-trisulphonic acid is prepared directly from phenol by heating with concentrated sulphuric acid in presence of phosphorus pentoxide.
From Synthetic Tannins by Georg Grasser
B-- -o-ey -o---- -o yo- -ro- old --ore le-- ---a-d --a- ---y --are -or -olle----- -or yo--o r--- --ll -all o- yo- ---r-day a- -o-r -e-.
From The Crevice by Will Grefé
In the absence of free sulphuric acid the conversion of o- into p-phenolsulphonic acid is brought about by heating the aqueous solution.
From Synthetic Tannins by Georg Grasser
I don't think the "-e" should eliminate the existing "-o" and the "-a."
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2022
Usually words ending in "-o" are masculine and those ending in "-a" are feminine, but there are many common words that break those gender rules, like "la mano," the word for "hand."
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2022
Knocko, Peddlo, Henpecko, and the rest became so popular that the -o suffix soon spread to words up and down the English language.
From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2020
The -o suffix traces back to old comic strip characters with names like Knocko and Groucho.
From Slate ● Mar. 31, 2020
I knew perfectly well why, but I didn’t know how -o put it.
From "Boy: Tales of a Childhood" by Roald Dahl
The P. o. wallikeri and the P. o. curtisi chromosomes were aligned against each other, as were the P. malariae and P. malariae-like chromosomes.
From Nature ● Jan. 24, 2017
Using a new reference genome for P. malariae and a manually curated draft P. o. curtisi genome, we are now able to accurately place these species within the Plasmodium phylogeny.
From Nature ● Jan. 24, 2017
Reality is that you are giving up your family time by doing the o. t. when they need you at work.
From Time ● May 3, 2013
“If you dey come give am ticket to leave this here country, I will disappear o. I will not even stop home for pick my bag.”
From Washington Post
“But sometimes one man can be both o. This is the season of weddings. When will it be my turn, Father Lord?”
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Thus masc. -o- stems show palatal modification, e.g. corn, “horn,” plur. cyrn < *kornī; the plural ending of -u- stems, O. Gaulish -oves, gives O.W. -ou, Mid.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various
District Judge David O. Carter to monitor a settlement between the city of Los Angeles and the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026
Thankfully, Curry did not allow any eerie rumors to deter him from securing the home, which was originally built in 1922, having been designed by acclaimed architect Stiles O. Clements.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
The Senate opened debate this week on the late South Carolina senator’s legacy legislation—the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act—by an overwhelming 86–12 vote.
From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2026
And if he’s going to be a senator, he says, he needs to lock down a Jackie O. – not a Marilyn.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026
Whether time proves me right and the Pres.’s two Secretaries, and the Hill boys, and the E. O. Lawrences wrong, I suppose no one will ever know.”
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
“LAHD is very excited about the opportunities ...t o produce more affordable housing and stabilize the city’s housing stock,” said Tiena Johnson Hall, the housing department’s general manager.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
Allow me to sing, o Muse, of a recent dinner conversation about “The Odyssey.”
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026
"The lack of justice has sparked this wave of protests," Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir of the legal rights group Ain o Salish Kendra told AFP.
From Barron's ● May 22, 2026
Mr. Brownlee’s tenor proved rock-solid in Arturo’s demanding music, from his exquisitely relaxed, almost languid opening aria, “A te, o cara,” to some punishing high Fs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
The infinitesimal time period o drops right out of the equation, oy/ox becomes y/x, and o need never be thought of again.
From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife
Barely a week after tying the knot with Taylor Swift in July, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was back at work inside Johnny O’s Gymnasium in Florida.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
Bennett relied on Baby O's neonatal notes as well as testimony from a police interview with the baby's mother about the infant's birth.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
While some winning coaches were making their names with toughness that bordered on abuse, he urged Close to see her teams as human beings first, not X’s and O’s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026
Other times, for the players who preferred to see plays spelled out with Xs and O’s, he’d diagram it on paper.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2025
Coach O’s eyes followed him all the way into the locker room.
From "We'll Fly Away" by Bryan Bliss
In 1988, he founded Luaka Bop, a record label whose influential compilations have introduced American audiences to lesser-known classics of world pop and psychedelia, such as Brazil’s Os Mutantes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
"The Dutch experience in my opinion offers a warning for Canada," Os cautioned.
From BBC ● May 15, 2026
Os had plenty of examples of powerful pop divas to draw inspiration from.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2026
Os has even accompanied Pluma on a few stops of his recent Dinastía Tour.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2026
“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye, “One, two, three. Why, here’s three Js, and three Os, and three J-O, Joes in it, Pip!”
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
They eventually named their institute for an online trend that had slime enthusiasts replacing the vowels in their name with double o’s, so Kira would become “Kooroo” and slime becomes “Sloomoo.”
From Washington Post ● Jun. 30, 2022
Like other Romance languages, Spanish divides most endings of nouns into masculine o’s or feminine a’s.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 12, 2021
Speaking in the same New Orleans twang as her students—those bouncy o’s and long, lingering a’s—Foster was teaching her fifth-graders about chemical reactions.
From Slate ● Jun. 5, 2016
Texting and Millennials The phone holds a million x’s and o’s.
From Forbes ● Jun. 5, 2013
It was almost perfect, just a fraction flatter and shakier than Betty Jean’s voice had been, the o’s and ah’s parodies of Betty Jean’s pretentious ones.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
Dreyfus pleased his friends no better than his :oes: he irked them by not becoming a "Dreyfusard."
From Time Magazine Archive
However thick-skinned a man may be, and protected over all by the oes triplex of self-sufficiency, he cannot escape being wounded by furious and incessant attacks.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 21, July, 1859 by Various
Yr un peth a ellir ei ddywedyd am Daliesin Ben Beirdd, nid oes neb heddyw, hyd i gwn i, a fedr gyfieithu yn iawn un o’i Awdlau na’i Orchanau.
From Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards by Evan Evans
Ir wyfi yn meddwl nad oes neb a ryfygei gymmeryd y fath orchest arno.
From Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards by Evan Evans
The poet "mouthing out his hollow oes and aes" is, we are told, a good description of Tennyson's tone and manner of reading.
From The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson by John Churton Collins
A new Longevity Preparedness Index from John Hancock and MIT AgeLab os based on a survey of over 1,300 adults and focused on eight areas such as finance, home, health and community.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 12, 2025
She first broke through with 2016’s “Remonta,” an album she recorded with her former band Liniker e os Caramelows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2025
Ambos os programas são “fundamentais para entender a expansão agrícola no Brasil e as emissões de carbono do desmatamento na Amazônia,” diz Douglas Morton, especialista em sensoriamento remoto do Goddard Space Flight Center da NASA.
From Science Magazine ● May 26, 2022
Hours later, Kelly posts bail and os released from jail in Chicago.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 18, 2021
You could talk to him about os and argos, suet and grease, croteys, fewmets and fiants, but he only looked polite.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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