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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

These sites are located in the same region HGF uses to connect with c met.

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

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

This is often what I'd describe as campaigning with a small "c" – discreet conversations and planning, the vast majority a long way from the public gaze and deniable.

From BBC ● Dec. 30, 2025

That meant Emma needed to try both versions, writing out the complete phrase, and then listing, a, b, c, d, e...etc. above each letter.

From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Altana, which was founded in 2019, most recently raised $200 million in a Series C round in 2024 that valued the company at $1 billion.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 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

Graham was known as a C student in high school, and was the first member of his family to attend college.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026

Spice Girls star Melanie C has said the 30th anniversary of the band's debut single Wannabe - which fell on Wednesday - was a "very emotional day".

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

Instruments with ranges that do not fall comfortably into either bass or treble clef may use a C clef or may be transposing instruments.

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

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

CBS Sports’ John Breech gave the Seahawks a C- for their Week 3 showing.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2021

"Old" arrived with a worse reception from moviegoers — it landed a "C-" CinemaScore — but Shyamalan's signature twist endings can benefit from a communal viewing experience.

From Reuters ● Jul. 25, 2021

One of the favorite things that we salvaged were the supply packages that were the Japanese equivalent of our cans of C- rations.

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

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

From Slate ● Dec. 23, 2019

For centuries, the curious altar painting titled “The Visitation,” c. 1528-29, by Jacopo Pontormo, has hung in a small town church in Italy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 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

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

When Vera C. Bushfield succeeded her late husband in 1948, she didn’t even bother to move to Washington.

From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026

He and his wife, Maria C. Klein, just returned from a trip to South America and are planning another trip to the Caribbean and South America later this year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026

Patricia Avila’s attorney Michael C. Murphy Jr. told The Times in a statement his team was “thrilled” by the outcome.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026

The researchers determined that almost all images captured by the largest camera ever built -- part of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile -- would be rendered unusable.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

The latter were left to an archaeologist, Anna C. Roosevelt, then at the Field Museum.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

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

However, Alison Downes, director of pressure group Stop Sizewell C, said ministers had not "come clean" about Sizewell C's cost, because "negotiations with private investors are incomplete".

From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2025

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

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 22, 2024

The woman scans my transcript—mostly C's bracketed by a couple of B's and D's.

From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins

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

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 27, 2026

"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

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

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

I think about the curling g's and c's she was so proud to mark on her pages and show Du Barry when we were little.

From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

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

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

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

C or cz is pronounced as English ts; cs as English ch; ds as English j; zs as French j; gy as dy.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 8 "Hudson River" to "Hurstmonceaux" by Various

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