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When Did The Letter U Enter The Alphabet?There was no letter U in the alphabet. Well, that’s not the entire story. There was the sound for the letter we call U, but it didn’t look like U. It looked like V. The Classical Latin alphabet had only 23 letters, not the 26 that we have today. (This is why the W looks like a double V but is pronounced like a double …
If “W” Is Double U, Why Is It Made Of Two Vs?The 23rd letter of the English alphabet is a bit of a wonder. The humble “w” is the only letter of the alphabet with a three-syllable name. It is also the only letter with a name that does not indicate its phonetic use. The complications of “w” are doublefold because of its name, ‘double u’ and its shape, ‘double v’. What’s going on here? In English, …
RELATED WORDS
Origin of U-boat
1910–15; < German U-Boot, short for Unterseeboot literally, undersea boat
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for u-boats
British Dictionary definitions for u-boats
U-boat
noun
a German submarine, esp in World Wars I and II
Word Origin for U-boat
from German U-Boot, abbreviation for Unterseeboot, literally: undersea boat
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Culture definitions for u-boats
U-boats
German submarines during World War I and World War II. U-boat is a translation of the German U-boot, which is short for Unterseeboot, or “undersea boat.”
Note
Lusitania was sunk by a U-boat. Eventually, U-boat attacks on neutral ships drew the United States into the war.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.