M is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet.

History

The letter M represents the bilabial nasal consonant sound, IPA in Classical languages as well as the modern languages. It derives its shape from the Greek Mu (Μ, μ). Semitic Mem originally pictured water, in all probability.

The Oxford English Dictionary (first edition) says that 'm' is sometimes a vowel in words like spasm and in the suffix -ism. In modern terminology this would be described as a syllabic consonant — IPA [m̩].

Meanings for M

• In archeology, M is an abbreviation for "Authentic Matthew"

• In astronomy, M is an abbreviation for "Messier" in designations for the Messier Deepsky Objects.

• In biochemistry, M is the symbol for methionine.

• In calendars, M is often an abbreviation for Monday or for one of the months "March" or "May".

• In chemistry,
  • M is the symbol for molarity (M) of solutions.
  • m is the symbol for molality (m) of solutions.

• In the CMYK color model, M stands for the color magenta.

• In comic books, M is the name of a member of "Generation X", a team of younger mutants affiliated with and coached by some of the former "X-Men".

• In computing,
  • M is a binary prefix meaning 2²⁰ = 1,048,576 (cf. M as a Metric prefix below).
  • M is another name for the computer programming language MUMPS.
• In common references to currency, M or m denotes million or millions, such as $25M (twenty-five million dollars).
• In traditional accounting practice, M designates thousand or thousands, and MM is used for million. Hence such traditional abbreviations as CPM for cost per thousand items of a retail good, or MCF for thousand cubic feet of (e.g.) natural gas.
• In film,
  • M is the name of a film from 1931 directed by Fritz Lang about a serial killer who preys on children; see M (1931 movie).
  • M is the name of a lesser-known film from 1951; see M (1951 movie).
  • In the James Bond books and films, M is the codename of the head of MI6; see M (James Bond).
• In international licence plate codes, M stands for Malta.
• In mathematics, m is used to denote slope in slope-intercept form . An M-set is the opposite of a set of uniqueness.
• In the Metric system,
  • M, mega, is an SI prefix denoting 10⁶ = 1,000,000 (one million) (cf. M in computing above)
  • m, milli, an SI prefix meaning 1/1000.
  • m denotes metre (or meter), the SI base unit for length.
• In music,
  • M is the assumed name of the artist Robin Scott , who performed the 1979 #1 hit song "Pop Muzik".
  • -M- is the artist name of the French singer Matthieu Chédid .
  • "M" is the pseudonym for a Jazz vocalist hired by Yoko Kanno (see M (singer))
• In physics, M-theory is a proposed solution for problems in superstring theories.
• As the first letter of a postal code,
  • In Canada, M stands for the Metropolitan Toronto area.
  • In the United Kingdom, M stands for Manchester.
• In radiocommunication, M is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United Kingdom.
• In Roman naming convention, M is the abbreviation for the praenomen Marcus, and M' stands for Manius.
• In Roman numerals, M denotes one thousand, from mille in Latin.
• In video games,
  • M is the ESRB rating symbol for Mature.
  • M is the abbreviation for Mario, a Nintendo character.
  • The name of a glitch Pokémon, called 'M. (The real name consists of a glitchy symbol before and after the 'M.)
• M is an abbreviation for the Russian design bureau Myasishchev
• In economics, M is usually used to represent imports.
• In photography, most SLR cameras use M to signify manual mode, where the user sets both aperture and shutter speed.

Alternate representations

Mike represents the letter M in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In international Morse code the letter M is DahDah: - -

In Braille the letter M is represented as ⠍ (in Unicode), the dot pattern:

XX
..
X.

Computing

In Unicode the capital M is codepoint U+004D and the lowercase m is U+006D.

The ASCII code for capital M is 77 and for lowercase m is 109; or in binary 01001101 and 01101101, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital M is 212 and for lowercase m is 148.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "M" and "m" for upper and lower case respectively.

See also