The sixth letter of the Latin and English alphabets, derived from the North Semitic letter waw, a letter usually denoted by a symbol resembling a modern "Y." A variant of this North Semitic letter was eventually adopted by the Greeks, who called it digamma, and used a symbol resembling a modern "F" to represent it. However, it has a "W"-like sound, and eventually fell out of use as a letter (although it remained as a numeral). In early Latin, the "f" sound was usually denoted by the "wh" letter combination, the "h" eventually being discontinued, and the "F" eventually coming into greater use. The lowercase "f" derives from the scribal cursive letter f which came from the capital.
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