K

the eleventh letter, and the eighth consonant, in the order of the English alphabet, is borrowed from the Greeks, being the same character as the Greek kappa, answering to the Oriental koph. It is called a pure mute, because it has no sound, but merely gives a certain peculiar abruptness to the sound which precedes or follows it, according as it is final or initial. It is related to g, as in gold, and to ng, as in sing, k being the palatal mute, g the palatal sonant, and ng the palatal nasal, of the same general position of the organs of speech. It is usually denominated a guttural, but is more properly a palatal. Before all the vowels, it has one invariable sound, corresponding with that of c before a, o, and u, as in keel, ken. In many words of one syllable it is used after c, as in crack, check, deck, being necessary to exhibit a correct pronunciation in the derivatives, cracked, checked, decked, cracking; for without it, c, before the vowels e and i, would be sounded like s. Formerly, k was added to c in certain words of Latin origin, as in musick, publick, republick; but in modern practice, it is very properly omitted, being entirely superfluous, and this omission is the more proper as k is never written in the derivatives, musical, publication, republican. See Principles of Pronunciation, §78.

☞ This character was not used by the ancient Romans, and rarely in the later ages of their empire. In the place of k, they used c, as in clino, for the Greek κλίνω.