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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  

abbreviation

1. cargo transport

   C-5

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c/- ⁵ British  

abbreviation

1. care of

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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

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

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

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

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

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

Though its soft pads made no noise, you c ould feel the earth shake beneath their weight.

From "The Magician's Nephew" by C. S. Lewis

“For those of us whose life circumstances have created options A, B, C, D, E, F and G, she might have options A and B,” El-Sayed said of the anecdote, which couldn’t be independently verified.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2026

On Wednesday, Meta announced a new class of stock with no voting rights called Class C that would take effect in January.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

To ensure Zuckerberg remains sufficiently invested in the company, the committee “stapled” 80% of his Class C shares, meaning that Zuckerberg cannot sell them unless he also sells his supervoting Class B shares.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 22, 2026

But Pools B and C are combined into one six-team league, from which only the top two will make the semi-finals.

From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2026

“Is this something different about the L and C program too?”

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

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

I got one D, a C- in algebra and all the rest B’s, except for two B+’s and two B-’s.

From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

The earliest are three allegorical scenes about the senses from c. 1624-25, when he was just shy of 20.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 24, 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

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

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

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 biggest challenges in treating C. difficile is its tendency to return.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 2026

Katherine C. Lafreniere is an assistant professor of marketing at Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

C. P. Ellis was working at his gas station when the news of King’s death came over the radio.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

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

From Science Daily ● Oct. 20, 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

"They were put in a situation where they were scammed," Christophe Bruschi, Joseph C's lawyer, told the BBC.

From BBC ● Dec. 11, 2024

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

From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2024

But it wasn’t Uncle C’s, like in my nightmares.

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

"It was incredibly exciting to see the beautiful pattern of Cs atoms in the pollucite structure, where about half of the atoms in the image correspond to radioactive Cs."

From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024

I popped my last two vitamin Cs and imagined the wrapped-in-a-blanket feeling I’d had when Mom was with me.

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

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

In early Latin, cs was often written for x.

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

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

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

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

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