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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  

abbreviation

1. care of

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c ² 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 ³ 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. ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. (on maps as part of name) Cape

2. Catholic

3. Celtic

4. Conservative

5. Corps

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C- ⁵ British  

abbreviation

1. cargo transport

   C-5

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C ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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 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

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

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

England is on track to become one of the first countries in the world to eliminate hepatitis C, a dangerous virus that attacks the liver, figures show.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

Around 50,200 adults are living with hepatitis C, figures for England in 2024 suggest.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

Take hepatitis C, which kills more people in the U.S. than HIV.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

A middle C would smell like a rose; bass notes like clove and vanilla.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

I recognize the sword—it has a C molded into the handle.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

For the word “cat,” for example, they must be able to segment the sound C-A-T, and then figure out what happens if they remove the C- sound.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2025

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

I think of the C- on my math test; my stomach muscles clench.

From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day

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

But who knew that some of these essays were collected in the pamphlet-style magazine “The American Museum, or Repository, of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces & c., Prose and Poetical”?

From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2018

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

The good news is that we figured out how to edit the code of life with Crispr and tamed sickle-cell disease and hepatitis C. We did the scientific heavy lifting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026

That matters because the gut can only absorb so much vitamin C. Once you reach a modest daily dose, the body simply stops taking in much more.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 7, 2026

Previously, the Games planned to have divers compete at the LA84 Foundation/John C. Argue Swim Stadium, immediately southwest of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which will host track and field events.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026

Southern Democrats gathered separately and chose Kentucky’s John C. Breckinridge, the sitting pro-slavery vice president.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 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

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

At a later date, Baby C's mother was given the non-confidential report and was led to believe it was the full document but she told the inquiry it was "woeful, information was missing".

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2024

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

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 22, 2024

The final page contains his own signature, a flourish of illegible C’s, carefully snipped from a piece of paper that might have been an invoice or a letter.

From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern

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

He had been getting Cs and Ds, and college never felt like home, anyway.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times

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

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

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

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

In early Latin, cs was often written for x.

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

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