Dictionary
Thesaurus
Reference
Translate
Web
EPSILON - 2 reference results
Epsilon (uppercase Ε, lowercase ε; Έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . Letters that arose from Epsilon include the Roman E and Cyrillic Ye.

"Epsilon" (ἒ ψιλόν, "simple e") was coined in the Middle Ages to distinguish the letter from the diphthong αι, which started being pronounced the same way during the period of New Testament Greek.

The standard symbol for lowercase epsilon is the lunate epsilon ϵ (epsilon, epsilon,, in LaTeX), which has its origins in Medieval Greek.

In mathematical notation, the minuscule open e symbol ɛ (varepsilon, varepsilon, in LaTeX) from the extended Latin alphabet is often used interchangeably with the lunate epsilon.

The lunate epsilon ϵ is not to be confused with the set symbol in or falsely recognized as the lunate version Σ (Sigma).

Upper case: character code 0395 Lower case: character code 03B5

Symbol

The upper-case Epsilon is not a commonly-used symbol outside of the Greek language because of its similarity to the Roman letter E.

The lower-case epsilon, ε/ϵ, or open e, ɛ, (see above) is used as the symbol for:

Fictional names

Other uses

References


Search another word or see EPSILON on Dictionary | Thesaurus