Jump To:

• 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.

---

c ² American  

Or c.

abbreviation

1. Optics. candle; candles.

2. cycle; cycles.

---

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.

---

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.

---

C ⁵ American  

noun

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

---

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.

---

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.

---

c̄ ⁸ American  

Or c.

1. (in prescriptions) with.

---

C- ⁹ American  

U.S. Military.

1. (in designations of transport aircraft) cargo.

   C-54; C-124.

---

c. ¹⁰ American  

abbreviation

1. gallon.

---

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

---

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.

---

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

---

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  

abbreviation

1. carat

2. cricket caught

3. cent(s)

4. century or centuries

5. (used esp preceding a date) circa

   c. 1800

---

c ³ 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

---

c/- ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. care of

---

c ⁵ 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

---

C- ⁶ British  

abbreviation

1. cargo transport

   C-5

---

C. ⁷ British  

abbreviation

1. (on maps as part of name) Cape

2. Catholic

3. Celtic

4. Conservative

5. Corps

---

c Scientific  

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

---

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

No wonder Edmund Burke, from the studio of Joshua Reynolds c.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 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

Clear signs of sulfur were found on the third planet, HR 8799 c, and the researchers believe it likely exists on the other two inner planets as well.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 11, 2026

Sometimes a c is used instead of a k, even if it makes more sense for cat to be spelled kat.

From "Inside Out and Back Again" by Thanhha Lai

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

From the first hint of cold winter mornings, supermarkets and pharmacies begin heavy marketing to coax us to stock up on vitamin C to get through the cold and flu season.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

A large part of Salesforce’s earnings gain comes from its investment in Anthropic, which first began during the artificial-intelligence company’s Series C funding round in 2023.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026

But that didn’t stop him publishing a book on vitamin C and colds in 1970.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

Start with pieces written in C, and play them only a half step or whole step lower or higher than written.

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

Kelly said deputies required to re-test would now need a C- grade to pass their evaluations and be returned to duty.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 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

“Curious about the construction of this c. 1940 house, I grabbed a flashlight to get a better look.”

From Washington Post ● Sep. 22, 2021

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

From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2019

For example, the megafauna of New Zealand—which had weathered the alleged ‘climate change’ of c. 45,000 years ago without a scratch—suffered devastating blows immediately after the first humans set foot on the islands.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

That setting, combined with the animal's anatomy, suggests C. praecursor lived an amphibious, semi-aquatic lifestyle in humid habitats along the boundary between water and land.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

Detailed analysis showed that C. praecursor possessed an ovipositor and a terminal caudal filament.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 27, 2026

James C. Scott called this legibility, the way institutions flatten complicated people into categories they can manage.

From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026

I couldn’t reach the project neutral, John C. O’Rourke Jr., a Chicago lawyer who has made this practice his specialty.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2026

One of those moments came at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 1985, when Glenn Izett and C. L. Pillmore of the U.S.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

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

Plan C’s website maintains a full list of options for obtaining abortion pills by state.

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2024

Maya recommends focusing on three C’s: catch, cause and cancer.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 22, 2024

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

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

Alleah got three Cs, three Bs and an A, allowing her to go to Bridgend College to study performing arts.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2024

Learning this and informed by modelling, the team set about pain-staking analysis that saw Utsunomiya, graduate student Kanako Miyazaki, and the team finally image radioactive Cs atoms.

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024

Written on the door with beautiful flourishes in gold paint was a name, but time had faded most of the letters away so all that remained were two capital Cs.

From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el

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

Double up on the c’s and the s’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

Make 7 more cs, joining between a and bs in the same manner. d.

From The Ladies' Work-Book Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. by Unknown

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

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

In early Latin, cs was often written for x.

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

L cs - b4† In both notations the moves are often given in a tabular form, thus:— 1.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 "Châtelet" to "Chicago" by Various

Related Words

• corruption
• disease
• malignancy
• sickness
• tumor