i definition | Dictionary.com

I, i

[ahy]

–noun, plural I's or Is, i's or is.

1.	the ninth letter of the English alphabet, a vowel.

2.	any spoken sound represented by the letter I or i, as in big, nice, or ski.

3.	something having the shape of an I.

4.	a written or printed representation of the letter I or i.

5.	a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter I ori.

I

[ahy]

pronoun, nominative I, possessive my or mine, objective me; plural nominative we, possessive our or ours, objective us; noun, plural I's.

–pronoun

1.	the nominative singular pronoun, used by a speaker in referring to himself or herself.

–noun

2.	(used to denote the narrator of a literary work written in the first person singular).

3.	Metaphysics. the ego.

Origin:
bef. 900; ME ik, ich, i; OE ic, ih; c. G ich, ON ek, L ego, Gk eg

, OCS azŭ, Lith aš, Skt ahám

Usage note:
See me.

I

interstate (used with a number to designate an interstate highway): I-95.

I

Symbol.

1.	the ninth in order or in a series.

2.	(sometimes lowercase) the Roman numeral for 1. Compare Roman numerals.

3.	Chemistry. iodine.

4.	Biochemistry. isoleucine.

5.	Electricity. current.

6.	Logic. particular affirmative.

i

Mathematics.

1.	Also called imaginary unit. the imaginary number .

2.	a unit vector on the x-axis of a coordinate system.

I

Symbol, Physics. isotopic spin.

i-

var. of y-.

-i-

the typical ending of the first element of compounds of Latin words, as -o- is of Greek words, but often used in English with a first element of any origin, if the second element is of Latin origin: cuneiform; Frenchify.

I.

1.	Independent.

2.	Island; Islands.

3.	Isle; Isles.

i.

1.	imperator.

incisor.

interest.

4.	intransitive.

island.

6.	isle; isles.

y-

a prefix occurring in certain obsolete words (ywis) and esp. in archaic past participles: yclad.

Also, i-.

Origin:
ME y-, i- (reduced var. a-), OE ge-, prefix with perfective, intensifying, or collective force; c. OFris, OS ge-, gi-, Goth ga-, G ge-; cf. perh. L com- com-

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Link To i

i¹ or I (ī)

n. pl. i's or I's also is or Is

The ninth letter of the modern English alphabet.
Any of the speech sounds represented by the letter i.
The ninth in a series.
Something shaped like the letter I.

i²
The symbol for imaginary unit.

I¹ (ī)

pron. Used to refer to oneself as speaker or writer.
n. pl. I's
The self; the ego.

[Middle English, from Old English ic; see eg in Indo-European roots.]

Usage Note: The question of when to use nominative forms of the personal pronouns (for example, I, she, they) and when to use objective forms (for example, me, her, them) has always created controversy among grammarians and uncertainty among speakers and writers. There is no problem when the pronoun stands alone with a single verb or preposition: every native speaker says I (not me) read the book; They told him (not he); The company bought a computer for us (not we); and so forth. But the decision is more problematic in other environments. · When pronouns are joined with other nouns or pronouns by and or or, there is a widespread tendency to use the objective form even when the phrase is the subject of the sentence: Tom and her are not speaking to each other. This usage is natural in colloquial speech, but the nominative forms should be used in formal speech and writing: John and she (not her) will be giving the talk. · When pronouns joined by a conjunction occur as the object of a preposition such as between, according to, or like, many people use the nominative form where the traditional grammatical rule would require the objective; they say between you and I rather than between you and me, and so forth. Many critics have seen this construction as originating in a hypercorrection, whereby speakers who have been taught to say It is I instead of It is me come further to assume that correctness also requires between you and I in place of between you and me. This explanation of the tendency cannot be the whole story, inasmuch as the phrase between you and I occurs in Shakespeare, centuries before the prescriptive rules requiring It is I and the like were formulated. But the between you and I construction is nonetheless widely regarded as a marker of grammatical ignorance and is best avoided. · In other contexts the traditional insistence that the nominative form be used is more difficult to defend. The objective form sounds most natural when the pronoun is not grammatically related to an accompanying verb or preposition. Thus, in response to the question "Who cut down the cherry tree?" we more colloquially say "Me," even though some grammarians have argued that I must be correct here by analogy to the form "I did"; and few speakers would accept that the sentence What, me worry? is improved if it is changed to What, I worry? The prescriptive insistence that the nominative be used in such a construction is grammatically questionable and is apt to lead to almost comical pedantries. · There is also a widespread tendency to use the objective form when a pronoun is used as a subject together with a noun in apposition, as in Us engineers were left without technical support. In formal speech or writing the nominative we would be preferable here. But when the pronoun itself appears in apposition to a subject noun phrase, the use of the nominative form may sound pedantic in a sentence such as The remaining members of the admissions committee, namely we, will have to meet next week. A writer who is uncomfortable about using the objective us here would be best advised to rewrite the sentence to avoid the difficulty. See Usage Notes at be, but, we.

I²

The symbol for the element iodine.
Electricity The symbol for current.
also i The symbol for the Roman numeral 1.

I³
abbr.

incomplete
interstate
isospin

imaginary unit
n. Symbol i
The square root of -1, corresponding to the point (0,1) in the geometric representation of complex numbers as points in a plane.

i·o·dine (ī'ə-dīn', -dĭn, -dēn')

Symbol I² A lustrous, grayish-black, corrosive, poisonous halogen element having radioactive isotopes, especially I 131, used as a medical tracer and in thyroid disease diagnosis and therapy. Iodine compounds are used as germicides, antiseptics, and dyes. Atomic number 53; atomic weight 126.9045; melting point 113.5°C; boiling point 184.35°C; specific gravity (solid, at 20°C) 4.93; valence 1, 3, 5, 7. See Table at element.
An antiseptic preparation containing iodine in solution, used to treat wounds.

[French iode, iodine (from Greek ioeidēs, violet-colored : ion, violet + -oeidēs, -oid) + -ine².]

i·so·spin (ī'sə-spĭn')

n. Abbr. I
A quantum number related to the number of charge states of a baryon or meson.

[iso(topic) + spin.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

I\ ([imac]). 1. I, the ninth letter of the English alphabet, takes its form from the Ph[oe]nician, through the Latin and the Greek. The Ph[oe]nician letter was probably of Egyptian origin. Its original value was nearly the same as that of the Italian I, or long e as in mete. Etymologically I is most closely related to e, y, j, g; as in dint, dent, beverage, L. bibere; E. kin, AS. cynn; E. thin, AS. [thorn]ynne; E. dominion, donjon, dungeon. In English I has two principal vowel sounds: the long sound, as in p[=i]ne, [=i]ce; and the short sound, as in p[i^]n. It has also three other sounds: (a) That of e in term, as in thirst. (b) That of e in mete (in words of foreign origin), as in machine, pique, regime. (c) That of consonant y (in many words in which it precedes another vowel), as in bunion, million, filial, Christian, etc. It enters into several digraphs, as in fail, field, seize, feign. friend; and with o often forms a proper diphtong, as in oil, join, coin. See Guide to Pronunciation, [sect][sect] 98-106.

Note: The dot which we place over the small or lower case i dates only from the 14th century. The sounds of I and J were originally represented by the same character, and even after the introduction of the form J into English dictionaries, words containing these letters were, till a comparatively recent time, classed together.

2. In our old authors, I was often used for ay (or aye), yes, which is pronounced nearly like it.

3. As a numeral, I stands for 1, II for 2, etc.

I\ ([imac]), pron. [poss. My (m[imac]) or Mine (m[imac]n); object. Me (m[=e]). pl. nom. We (w[=e]); poss. Our (our) or Ours (ourz); object. Us ([u^]s).] [OE. i, ich, ic, AS. ic; akin to OS. & D. ik, OHG. ih, G. ich, Icel. ek, Dan. jeg, Sw. jag, Goth. ik, OSlav. az', Russ. ia, W. i, L. ego, Gr. 'egw`, 'egw`n, Skr. aham. [root]179. Cf. Egoism.] The nominative case of the pronoun of the first person; the word with which a speaker or writer denotes himself.

Language Translation for : i

Spanish: yo,

German: ich,

Japanese: 私は

More Translations »

12c. shortening of O.E. ic, first person sing. nom. pronoun, from P.Gmc. *ekan (cf. O.Fris. ik, O.N. ek, Norw. eg, Dan. jeg, O.H.G. ih, Ger. ich, Goth. ik), from PIE *ego(m) (cf. Skt. aham, Hitt. uk, L. ego, Gk. ego, Rus. ja). Reduced to i by 1137 in northern England, it began to be capitalized c.1250 to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.

"The reason for writing I is ... the orthographic habit in the middle ages of using a 'long i' (that is, j or I) whenever the letter was isolated or formed the last letter of a group; the numeral 'one' was written j or I (and three iij, etc.), just as much as the pronoun." [Otto Jespersen, "Growth and Structure of the English Language," p.233]

The form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c.1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. The dot on the "small" letter -i- began to appear in 11c. L. manuscripts, to distinguish the letter from the stroke of another letter (such as -m- or -n-). Originally a diacritic, it was reduced to a dot with the introduction of Roman type fonts. The basic word for "I" in Japanese is watakushi, but it is not much used. Words that boys usually use are boku (polite) or ore (OH-ray), a rougher word, which can be rude depending on the situation. Girls usually use atashi (a feminine-sounding word) or the neutral watashi, but a tomboy might use boku like boys do.

I

A Nasdaq stock symbol specifying that it is the third preferred bond of the company.

Investopedia Commentary

Nasdaq-listed securities have four or five characters. If a fifth letter appears, it identifies the issue as other than a single issue of common stock or capital stock.

Used in the dividend column of stock transaction tables to indicate that the dividend was paid after a stock dividend or split: Lehigh s.20i.

Main Entry: i
Function: abbreviation
1 incisor
2 optically inactive

Main Entry: I
Function: symbol
iodine

The symbol for the element iodine.
iThe symbol for current.

i (ī) Pronunciation Key
The number whose square is equal to -1. Numbers expressed in terms of i are called imaginary or complex numbers.

The symbol for electric current.
The symbol for iodine.

iodine (ī'ə-dīn') Pronunciation Key
Symbol I
A shiny, grayish-black element of the halogen group. It is corrosive and poisonous and occurs in very small amounts in nature except for seaweed, in which it is abundant. Iodine compounds are used in medicine, antiseptics, and dyes. Atomic number 53; atomic weight 126.9045; melting point 113.5°C; boiling point 184.35°C; specific gravity (solid, at 20°C) 4.93; valence 1, 3, 5, 7. See Periodic Table.

see dot the i's and cross the t's.

i
imaginary unit

current
ice
incomplete
institute
intelligence
interstate
iodine
isospin
Italy (international vehicle ID)
1

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