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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. 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. ² 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 ³ 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/- ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. care of

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C- ⁵ British  

abbreviation

1. cargo transport

   C-5

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c ⁶ 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. ⁷ British  

abbreviation

1. (on maps as part of name) Cape

2. Catholic

3. Celtic

4. Conservative

5. Corps

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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

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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

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

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

But portraits dominate, including Jacques-Louis David’s affectionate image of his young son, c.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 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

Not every editor is quite as catholic with a little c, as ecumenical, as excited about such a range of writing as I am.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2026

The letter a, b, c, or d indicates a correct answer; a number indicates a wrong answer, with 1 corresponding to a, 2 corresponding to b, and so on.

From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt

Cybersecurity startup Sentra has raised $150 million in a Series C funding round led by Capital One Ventures.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026

Beyond the improvements in blood vessel function and blood pressure, participants eating mango and avocado consumed more fiber, vitamin C, and monounsaturated fat.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 3, 2026

Lose the first game at Hampden and the nightmare scenario of finishing bottom - and suffering relegation to League C - is also still a possibility.

From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026

From 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., the celebration will continue at the R. Jack Mercer Community Bandstand at Euclid Avenue and C Street, where community members can gather for a Día de los Muertos procession.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2026

Exhibit C, thirty-three minutes in: “Guess how much poop these cows produce in a given day?”

From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer

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

"You might be fine. But you might get a C-, so why would you do that?" she said.

From Reuters ● Feb. 16, 2023

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

From Slate ● Dec. 13, 2022

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

The powerful new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has already uncovered two previously unknown companions of the Milky Way, offering an early glimpse of what could become a much larger wave of discoveries.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 7, 2026

Former City Councilmember Bernard C. Parks, who held office from 2003 to 2015, dismissed the criticism.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2026

Ms. Postrel is a contributing editor at Works in Progress magazine and co-host of the “Everyday Abundance” podcast with Charles C. Mann.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2026

“It’s easy for advisers to get in a bubble and forget what others don’t know,” said Cliff Robb, a professor of finance at Belmont University’s Jack C. Massey College of Business.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 23, 2026

One of the most compelling accounts of the postemancipation period is The Strange Career of Jim Crow, written by C. Vann Woodward in 1955.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Experiments using cancer models have provided additional evidence of vitamin C's possible protective effects.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2026

The buzz: Though lacking the sizzle of Brazil-Morocco, Group C’s other first-day matchup is no less important.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 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

I call them the three C’s: courts, crowds, and courage.

From Slate ● Nov. 18, 2025

Uncle C’s cackle echoed in my ears, and I shivered.

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

Erin Bleakley's plans were ruined after she was awarded Bs, Cs and Ds in her highers in 2020 after an emergency marking system was introduced.

From BBC ● Oct. 28, 2026

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

Prof. Gareth Law, a study collaborator from the University of Helsinki, explained that "this means we lack full information on the chemical form of Cs in the particles and fuel debris."

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024

While she listened, Belle made me a turkey sandwich and gave me about ten chewable vitamin Cs because she thought I sounded nasal.

From "When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead

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

In early Latin, cs was often written for x.

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

Longitudinal section of flower; v, bracteole on the peduncle; l, sepals; ls, appendage of sepal; c, petals; cs, spur of the lower petals; fs, glandular appendage of the lower stamens; a, anthers.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 5 "Fleury, Claude" to "Foraker" by Various

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

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

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