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• c
  c

  abbreviation

  (with a year) about.
• C
  C

  noun

  the third letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.
• c̄
  c̄

  (in prescriptions) with.
• C-
  C-

  (in designations of transport aircraft) cargo.
• c.
  c.

  abbreviation

  gallon.
• C.
  C.

  abbreviation

  Calorie.
• c/-
  c/-

  abbreviation

  care of

c

¹ American  

Or c.

abbreviation

1. (with a year) about.

   c1775.

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c ² American  

Or c.

abbreviation

1. Optics. candle; candles.

2. cycle; cycles.

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c ³ American  

Symbol.

1. Physics, Optics. the speed of light in a vacuum: standardized as 186,282.4 miles per second (299,792,458 meters per second).

2. Physics, Acoustics. the speed of sound.

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C ⁴ American  

[see] / si /

Or c

noun

• C's,
  plural
• Cs,
  plural
• c's,
  plural
• cs
  plural

1. the third letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.

2. any spoken sound represented by the letter C or c, as in cat, race, or circle.

3. something having the shape of a C .

4. a written or printed representation of the letter C or c.

5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter C or c.

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C ⁵ American  

noun

1. Computers. a high-level programming language: very powerful and flexible, it is used in a wide variety of applications.

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C ⁶ American  

abbreviation

1. cocaine.

2. Grammar. complement.

3. consonant.

4. Electricity. coulomb.

5. county (used with a number to designate a county road).

   C55.

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C ⁷ American  

Symbol.

1. the third in order or in a series.

2. (in some grading systems) a grade or mark, as in school or college, indicating the quality of a student's work as fair or average. Sometimes c

3. Music.

   1. the first tone, or keynote, in the scale of C major or the third tone in the relative minor scale, A minor.

   2. a string, key, or pipe tuned to this tone.

   3. a written or printed note representing this tone.

   4. (in the fixed system of solmization) the first tone of the scale of C major, called do.

   5. the tonality having C as the tonic note.

   6. a symbol indicating quadruple time and appearing after the clef sign on a musical staff.

4. the Roman numeral for 100. Sometimes c

5. Celsius.

6. centigrade.

7. Electricity.

   1. capacitance.

   2. a battery size for 1.5 volt dry cells: diameter, 1 inch (2.5 centimeters); length, 1.9 inches (4.8 centimeters).

8. Chemistry. carbon.

9. Physics.

   1. charge conjugation

   2. charm.

10. Biochemistry.

    1. cysteine.

    2. cytosine.

11. Slang. Also a hundred-dollar bill.

12. a proportional shoe width size, narrower than D and wider than B.

13. a proportional brassiere cup size, smaller than D and larger than B.

14. the lowest quality rating for a corporate or municipal bond.

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c̄ ⁸ American  

Or c.

1. (in prescriptions) with.

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C- ⁹ American  

U.S. Military.

1. (in designations of transport aircraft) cargo.

   C-54; C-124.

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c. ¹⁰ American  

abbreviation

1. gallon.

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c. ¹¹ American  

abbreviation

1. Optics. candle; candles. Also c

2. carat.

3. carbon.

4. carton.

5. case.

6. Baseball. catcher.

7. cathode.

8. cent; cents.

9. centavo.

10. Football. center.

11. centigrade.

12. centime.

13. centimeter.

14. century.

15. chairman; chairperson.

16. chapter.

17. chief.

18. child.

19. church.

20. cirrus.

21. city.

22. cloudy.

23. cognate.

24. color.

25. copper.

26. copyright.

27. corps.

28. cubic.

29. cycle; cycles. Also c

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C. ¹² American  

abbreviation

1. Calorie.

2. Cape.

3. Catholic.

4. Celsius.

5. Celtic.

6. Centigrade.

7. College.

8. (in Costa Rica and El Salvador) colon; colons.

9. Congress.

10. Conservative.

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C ¹ British  

symbol

1. music

   1. a note having a frequency of 261.63 hertz ( middle C ) or this value multiplied or divided by any power of 2; the first degree of a major scale containing no sharps or flats ( C major )

   2. a key, string, or pipe producing this note

   3. the major or minor key having this note as its tonic

   4. a time signature denoting four crotchet beats to the bar See also alla breve common time

2. chem carbon

3. biochem cytosine

4. capacitance

5. heat capacity

6. cold (water)

7. physics compliance

8. Celsius

9. centigrade

10. century

    C20

11. coulomb

12. 100 See Roman numerals

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abbreviation

1. Cuba (international car registration)

noun

1. a computer programming language combining the advantages of a high-level language with the ability to address the computer at a level comparable with that of an assembly language

c ² British  

symbol

1. centi-

2. cubic

3. cycle

4. maths constant

5. specific heat capacity

6. the speed of light and other types of electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum

7. chess See algebraic notation

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c. ³ British  

abbreviation

1. carat

2. cricket caught

3. cent(s)

4. century or centuries

5. (used esp preceding a date) circa

   c. 1800

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c ⁴ British  

/ siː /

noun

1. the third letter and second consonant of the modern English alphabet

2. a speech sound represented by this letter, in English usually either a voiceless alveolar fricative, as in cigar, or a voiceless velar stop, as in case

3. the third in a series, esp the third highest grade in an examination

4. 1. something shaped like a C

   2. ( in combination )

      a C-spring

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C. ⁵ British  

abbreviation

1. (on maps as part of name) Cape

2. Catholic

3. Celtic

4. Conservative

5. Corps

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C- ⁶ British  

abbreviation

1. cargo transport

   C-5

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c/- ⁷ British  

abbreviation

1. care of

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c Scientific  

1. The symbol for the speed of light in a vacuum.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• C's
  plural
• Cs
  plural
• c's
  plural
• cs
  plural

Etymology

Origin of c¹

From Latin circā, circiter, circum

Origin of c̄⁸

From the Latin word cum

Origin of c.¹⁰

From the Latin word congius

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

c C C- c. C. C's Cs c's cs

He acquired Anthony van Dyck’s highly finished portrait of his mistress, Margaret Lemon, c.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

We learn, too, that the collection’s landscapes by Hubert Robert, “Colonnade and Gardens at the Villa Medici,” c.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

When HGF was mixed with LASSS, its ability to bind to c met rose to more than twice that of untreated HGF.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

Instead of having just three parameters—a, b, and c in this quadratic—the latest A.I. chatbots are estimated to have trillions of parameters.

From Slate ● May 25, 2026

She shuffled to the last page of the stack of papers and painstakingly began writing: F r a n c .

From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

The category C prison has stood empty since July 2024 after high levels of radon were found in prisoners' accommodation.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

In April 2022, a Series C funding round had valued Boring at $5.675 billion.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

Should a barista want the coffee to stay hotter for longer - if a customer requests extra hot - it can be served at over 82 degrees C, says MTPak Coffee.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

The bot shot back: Actually, because she was born in Spain and her original name was Catalina, a C is correct.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Figure 6.2: You can continue this series of perfect fifths to get the rest of the notes of a chromatic scale; the series would continue F sharp, C sharp, and so on.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones

Once assembled, the units went back on trucks bound for Moffett Field, a military installation, where they were loaded into hulking C- 5 transport planes and flown to their final—classified—destinations.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

While it is hard to find universal statistics for everyone on Earth, European researchers estimated in a study published in 2018 that more than 0.5 percent of people in Germany suffer from C- PTSD.

From Salon ● Apr. 19, 2023

Its answer would’ve probably earned a C or C-.

From Slate ● Dec. 13, 2022

The 47-year-old performer playing him has donned several hats over his past couple of decades hovering between the C- and D-lists: actor, comedian, model, MTV video jockey, rap artist.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2021

Each C- ration package was supposed to be a three-meal-a-day food source.

From "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two" by Joseph Bruchac

Also on display is Giotto’s earliest known work, a “Madonna and Child” of c. 1285-90, which dates from the period of the artist’s first arrival in Assisi.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026

Taped to the bottom of an Art Deco ceramic vase, for example, she has written: “Weller, Forest c. 1920. Paid $1 at a yard sale. Took to Antiques Roadshow in the 1990s. Valued at $250-$350.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2025

“That’s the small c. But the big C in my life is Christianity.”

From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2019

I tour the grounds, peeking inside the house at a documentary about its creation and admiring the museumlike displays hanging from the interior walls — “Budweiser curtain from south wall of house c. 1980.”

From Washington Post ● May 12, 2016

The inscription turned out to be a date: September 3,32 b. c. , in today’s calendar.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Educator Kendall C. Peacock posted a video on Instagram asking followers whether a boycott of the brand was warranted.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026

The release includes incidents dating back to 1952, including footage filmed near Tremonton, Utah, by US Navy Chief Warrant Officer Delbert C. Newhouse, who reported seeing and filming a group of bright airborne objects.

From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026

And he’s been teaching guitar at Bearing Song ever since owner Sarah C. Hanson-Hofstetter hired him to fix a door.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

Working-class voters respect people who talk to them directly — Trump’s “straight talk” — and those who have been successful through their own hard work, social inequality expert Joan C. Williams argued in 2016.

From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026

Somebody said, “I’m Charles C. Diggs, elected congressman from the state of Michigan, and I insist on being given a seat in the courtroom.”

From "Mississippi Trial, 1955" by Chris Crowe

As I sit in the car with C after the second ICE vehicle sped off, the remaining Wagoneer idles midblock—right in front of C’s house.

From Slate ● Jan. 16, 2026

In high school, I received mostly B’s and C’s, and I didn’t study for the SATs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 2, 2025

But in the meeting, Mr Harvey told Baby C's mother staffing levels and statistics were being examined and failed to mention anything about suspicions surrounding the nurse.

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2024

In these small moments, seeing Baby C’s joy from playing basketball, reminded Clarendon of their own passion for the game.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2024

The lack of emotion in Uncle C’s voice forced my head around before I could stop myself.

From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia

Only eight banks got Bs, while the majority got Cs; 36 got Ds.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 27, 2026

The 16-year-old hopes to get a minimum of five Cs, including maths and Welsh, to study for a Level 3 in agricultural engineering at Coleg Glynllifon.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2025

"And by now, they would have found them. There would be plan Bs and plan Cs, to make sure that we have reduced this exposure to the US."

From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2025

Utsunomiya continued, "because we knew that most of the Cs in CsMPs is fission derived, we thought that analysis of the pollucite could yield the first ever direct images of radioactive Cs atoms."

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024

Some Os and Qs and Cs long and narrow.

From "One Crazy Summer" by Rita Williams-Garcia

Beyond consent, the other two c’s, credit and compensation, have their own challenges, as illustrated even now with the high cost of litigation regarding infringements of copyright or patents.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 7, 2023

“It hasn’t rained in months,” she said, her Tuscan Italian full of soft g’s and c’s.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2021

On the other hand I can always tell you that I lost a spelling bee to Juanita Meyers in the fifth grade; the word was necessary, I misspelled it with two "c's."

From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2016

Hard consonants - k's, d's, hard c's and hard g's - gave me hell.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2010

Don’t be tempted to double up on/’s or c’s.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

A contestant in the Season 3 premiere lays out her "four cs" theory of success: "courage, creativity, cash and celebrity."

From Time Magazine Archive

The grammarians say that the character axis a monogram representing cs or gs.

From Latin Pronunciation A Short Exposition of the Roman Method by Harry Thurston Peck

Quintilian remarks that x is not an indispensable letter in Latin, implying that cs and gs could take its place.

From Latin Pronunciation A Short Exposition of the Roman Method by Harry Thurston Peck

Of these, x was equivalent to cs, while the equivalence of z is uncertain.

From New Latin Grammar by Charles E. (Charles Edwin) Bennett

After giving the sound of x as cs, Marius Victorinus goes on to speak of z thus:

From The Roman Pronunciation of Latin Why we use it and how to use it by Frances Ellen Lord

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