Overview

The letter B is the second character of the modern Latin alphabet. In English and many other languages it commonly represents a voiced bilabial stop, the sound written as /b/ in phonetic transcription. Like other alphabetic letters, B has both uppercase (B) and lowercase (b) forms and appears in print, handwriting and diverse specialist notations.

Shapes and writing

Typographically, uppercase B comprises a vertical stem with two rounded bowls attached on the right. Lowercase b features a vertical stem with a single bowl or loop. Handwriting and typefaces vary: serif and sans-serif faces alter stroke endings and proportions, while cursive forms join the letter to adjacent letters. Braille encodes the letter B as dots 1–2; in Morse code it is represented by -....

Pronunciation and behavior in English

In English the letter typically denotes the voiced bilabial stop /b/, as in "bat" or "cabinet." It is often silent in certain clusters or final positions—commonly after m in words such as "climb"—and participates in consonant clusters (e.g., br, bl, nb).

Historical development

B traces its ancestry to the Phoenician letter beth (meaning "house"), used more than three millennia ago. That character passed into the Greek alphabet as beta, then into the Etruscan and Latin alphabets where its modern form and order were fixed. The name and sound evolved with each language family that adopted the letter.

Notable uses and symbolism

  • Music: the note B exists in Western pitch notation; in some Germanic traditions the letter B historically names B-flat, with H used for B natural.
  • Science and technology: B is the chemical symbol for the element boron. In computing, uppercase B commonly denotes a byte while lowercase b denotes a bit.
  • Codes and signs: NATO phonetic alphabet uses "Bravo" for B. In blood typing, B denotes one of the major ABO blood groups.
  • Education and grading: B often denotes the second-highest performance level in many grading systems.

Because of its clear visual form and common phonetic value, B is one of the most widely recognized letters in alphabets derived from Latin and Greek, and it continues to serve both everyday language and many specialized symbolic systems.