W

W, 23rd letter of the English alphabet. Its origins have been traced to the Semitic letter waw (meaning “hook”), which was a symbol resembling a tent peg or hook, itself perhaps derived from a y-shaped Egyptian hieroglyph. This letter reached the Roman alphabet as a v, though it was used both for u and v. Medieval Norman scribes began writing vv or uu (“double u”) to represent the Anglo-Saxon w sound for which Norman French had no equivalent.