Z

Z, 26th and last letter of the English alphabet, corresponding to the ancient Semitic letter zayin, meaning “weapon.” The Greeks adopted the familiar z form for zeta, the sixth letter of their alphabet. The Romans used the letter only for words of Greek origin. In Old French, the letter was called zède or zé, hence the name zed used in Great Britain and Canada, and the name zee commonly used in the United States. In Old English, the z sound was represented by the letter.