The seventeenth letter of the English alphabet, derived from the North Semitic qoph, used to represent a guttural "K" sound. The "Q" as a separate letter didn't exist in Greek ('kappa was used for the "K" sound; see K, k), but the Etruscan "Q" was carried over into Latin to represent a labialized "K" sound. The "Q" was also used in combination with "U" and was pronounced much as it is today. In Old English, the "QU" combination was represented as "CW" or "KW."
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