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E e
(See below)
Writing cursive forms of E
Writing systemLatin script
Language of originLatin language
Phonetic usage[e]
(English variations)
Unicode valueU+0045, U+0065
Alphabetical position5
Time periodc. 700 BC to present
Descendants •
 • Ə
 • Æ
 • Œ
 • &


Ե ե
Է է
Ը ը

Variations(See below)
Other letters commonly used withee



Egyptian hieroglyph
PhoenicianE-01.svg Alfabeto camuno-e.svg Epsilon uc lc.svg Roman E

The Latin letter 'E' differs little from its source, the Greek letter epsilon, 'Ε'. This in turn comes from the Semitic letter , which has been suggested to have started as a praying or calling human figure (hillul 'jubilation'), and was probably based on a similar Egyptian hieroglyph that indicated a different pronunciation. In Semitic, the letter represented /h/ (and /e/ in foreign words); in Greek, became the letter epsilon, used to represent /e/. The various forms of the Old Italic script and the Latin alphabet followed this usage.

Use in writing systems[edit]

Pronunciation of the name of the letter ⟨e⟩ in European languages


Although Middle English spelling used ⟨e⟩ to represent long and short /e/, the Great Vowel Shift changed long /eː/ (as in 'me' or 'bee') to /iː/ while short /ɛ/ (as in 'met' or 'bed') remained a mid vowel. In other cases, the letter is silent, generally at the end of words.

Other languages[edit]

In the orthography of many languages it represents either [e], [], [ɛ], or some variation (such as a nasalized version) of these sounds, often with diacritics (as: ⟨e ê é è ë ē ĕ ě ė ę ⟩) to indicate contrasts. Less commonly, as in French, German, or Saanich, ⟨e⟩ represents a mid-central vowel /ə/. Digraphs with ⟨e⟩ are common to indicate either diphthongs or monophthongs, such as ⟨ea⟩ or ⟨ee⟩ for /iː/ or /eɪ/ in English, ⟨ei⟩ for /aɪ/ in German, and ⟨eu⟩ for /ø/ in French or /ɔɪ/ in German.

Other systems[edit]

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨e⟩ for the close-mid front unrounded vowel or the mid front unrounded vowel.

Most common letter[edit]

'E' is the most common (or highest-frequency) letter in the English alphabet (starting off the typographer's phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU) and several other European languages, which has implications in both cryptography and data compression. In the story "The Gold-Bug" by Edgar Allan Poe, a character figures out a random character code by remembering that the most used letter in English is E. This makes it a hard and popular letter to use when writing lipograms. Ernest Vincent Wright's Gadsby (1939) is considered a "dreadful" novel, and supposedly "at least part of Wright's narrative issues were caused by language limitations imposed by the lack of E."[7] Both Georges Perec's novel A Void (La Disparition) (1969) and its English translation by Gilbert Adair omit 'e' and are considered better works.[8]

Related characters[edit]

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet[edit]

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets[edit]

  • 𐤄 : Semitic letter He (letter), from which the following symbols originally derive
    • Ε ε : Greek letter Epsilon, from which the following symbols originally derive
      • Е е : Cyrillic letter Ye
      • Є є : Ukrainian Ye
      • Э э : Cyrillic letter E
      • Ⲉ ⲉ : Coptic letter Ei
      • 𐌄 : Old Italic E, which is the ancestor of modern Latin E
        •  : Runic letter Ehwaz, which is possibly a descendant of Old Italic E
      • 𐌴 : Gothic letter eyz

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations[edit]

Computing codes[edit]

Character E e
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 69 U+0045 101 U+0065
UTF-8 69 45 101 65
Numeric character reference &#69; &#x45; &#101; &#x65;
EBCDIC family 197 C5 133 85
ASCII 1 69 45 101 65

Other representations[edit]

NATO phonetic Morse code
Echo ·
ICS Echo.svg Semaphore Echo.svg Sign language E.svg ⠑
Signal flag Flag semaphore American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) Braille

In British Sign Language (BSL), the letter 'e' is signed by extending the index finger of the right hand touching the tip of index on the left hand, with all fingers of left hand open.


  1. ^ "E" a letter Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1993). Ees is the plural of the name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is rendered E's, Es, e's, or es.
  2. ^ Kelk, Brian. "Letter frequencies". UK Free Software Network. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  3. ^ Lewand, Robert. "Relative Frequencies of Letters in General English Plain text". Cryptographical Mathematics. Central College. Archived from the original on 2008-07-08. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  4. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in Spanish". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on 2008-05-11. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  5. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in French". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on 2008-03-12. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  6. ^ "Frequency of Occurrence of Letters in German". Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Archived from the original on 2012-06-28. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  9. ^ a b c d Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).

External links[edit]

  • Media related to E at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of E at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of e at Wiktionary