The Greek Letters

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When you are working with geometry and trigonometry, you will see a lot of Greek letters. It will be helpful to know how the names of these letters are spelled, and how those names are pronounced in English.

In trigonometry, you'll probably only deal with a few lower-case Greek letters. In advanced algebra or calculus, you may see a few of the capital letters, too.

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In the table below, there are two Greek characters in the first box in each row. These are the upper- and lower-case forms of each letter, respectively.

Letter	Name	Pronounced
Α, α	alpha	AL-fuh (AL rhymes with pal)
Β, β	beta	BAY-tuh
Γ, γ	gamma	GAMM-muh
Δ, δ	delta	DELL-tuh
Ε, ε	epsilon	EPP-sih-lonn
Ζ, ζ	zeta	ZAY-tuh
Η, η	eta	AY-tuh
Θ, θ	theta	THAY-tuh (TH as in bath, not bathe)
Ι, ι	iota	ee-OH-tuh
Κ, κ	kappa	KA-puh (KA as in cat, not cot)
Λ, λ	lambda	LAMM-duh
Μ, μ	mu	myoo (like the mew of a cat)
Ν, ν	nu	nyoo
Ξ, ξ	xi	ksee
Ο, ο	omicron	OH-mih-kronn
Π, π	pi	pie (like apple pie)
Ρ, ρ	rho	row (like row, row, row your boat)
Σ, σ, ς	sigma	SIGG-muh (ς is only at the end of words)
Τ, τ	tau	tow (rhymes with cow)
Υ, υ	upsilon	UPP-sih-lonn
Φ, φ	phi	fie (like fee, fie, fo, fum)
Χ, χ	chi	kiy
Ψ, ψ	psi	psiy (ps as in lapse)
Ω, ω	omega	oh-MAY-guh

Greek letters are used in many areas of the sciences; not just in mathematics. Don't be surprised if you encounter these letters in non-math classes.

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The Greek letters you are most likely to see for angles (in geometry and trigonometry) are α (alpha), β (beta), γ (gamma), δ (delta), and θ (theta).

And of course you'll be using π (pi) all the time. Make sure you know how to spell and pronounce at least these six Greek characters.

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The Greek Letters

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