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Tau in Scrabble and Meaning

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What does tau mean? Is tau a Scrabble word?

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Scrabble® and Words with Friends® points for tau

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Is tau a Scrabble word?

Yes. The word tau is a Scrabble US word. The word tau is worth 3 points in Scrabble:

T1A1U1

Is tau a Scrabble UK word?

Yes. The word tau is a Scrabble UK word and has 3 points:

T1A1U1

Is tau a Words With Friends word?

Yes. The word tau is a Words With Friends word. The word tau is worth 4 points in Words With Friends (WWF):

T1A1U2

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Valid words made from Tau

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3-letter words (2 found)

TAU,UTA,

2-letter words (3 found)

AT,TA,UT,

You can make 5 words from tau according to the Scrabble US and Canada dictionary.

All 3 letters words made out of tau

tau atu tua uta aut uat

Note: these 'words' (valid or invalid) are all the permutations of the word tau. These words are obtained by scrambling the letters in tau.

Definitions and meaning of tau

tau

Etymology

From Middle English tau, taue, from Latin tau, from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû) and Hebrew תָּו (tav)

Sense 6 (“mathematical constant equal to 2π”) was used by Joseph M. Lindenberg in 1991, and popularized by the American educator and entrepreneur Michael Hartl in a 2010 paper which explains that τ resembles π; and that τ is the Greek equivalent of t, the first letter of turn, and 2π corresponds to one turn of a circle with a radius of one unit.

Sense 8.1 (“short for tau lepton or tau particle”) was coined by the American physicist Martin Lewis Perl (1927–2014) after the first letter of Ancient Greek τρίτον (tríton, “third”), since the tau lepton or tauon was the third charged lepton discovered.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /taʊ/, /tɔː/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /taʊ/, /tɔ/
  • Rhymes: -aʊ, -ɔː

Noun

tau (plural taus)

  1. The letter Τ／τ in the Greek alphabet; being the nineteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek, and the twenty-first letter of the Old and Ancient Greek alphabets.
  2. Alternative form of taw; the 22nd and last letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic.
  3. A Τ-shaped object or sign; a Saint Anthony's cross, sometimes regarded as a sacred symbol.
    1. (Christianity) A crosier with a Τ-shaped head.
  4. The ankh symbol (☥).
    Synonym: crux ansata
  5. (astronomy) Chiefly written τ: used to designate the nineteenth star (usually according to brightness) in a constellation.
  6. (finance) A measurement of the sensitivity of the value of an option to changes in the implied volatility of the price of the underlying asset.
    Synonyms: kappa, vega
    Hypernym: Greeks (includes a list of coordinate terms)
  7. (mathematics, neologism) Chiefly written τ: an irrational and transcendental constant representing the ratio of the circumference of a Euclidean circle to its radius, equal to twice the value of pi (2π; approximately 6.2831853071).
  8. (neurology) Short for tau protein (“a protein abundant especially in the neurons of the human central nervous system that stabilizes microtubules, and when misfolded is associated with forms of dementia such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases”).
  9. (physics) Chiefly written τ.
    1. Short for tau lepton or tau particle (“an unstable elementary particle which is a type of lepton, having a mass almost twice that of a proton, a negative charge, and a spin of ½; it decays into hadrons (usually pions) or other leptons, and neutrinos; a tauon”).
    2. (historical) Short for tau meson, now known as a kaon.

Derived terms

Translations

References

Further reading

  • tau on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • tau cross on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • tau (particle) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • tau protein on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • turn (angle) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • tau (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

  • AUT, UAT, UTA, Uta, aut-, uta

'Are'are

Verb

tau

  1. to give

References

  • Kateřina Naitoro, A Sketch Grammar of 'Are'are: The Sound System and Morpho-Syntax (2013)

Catalan

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈtaw]
  • Rhymes: -aw

Noun

tau f (plural taus)

  1. Tau; the Greek letter Τ (lowercase τ)
  2. tav; the Hebrew letter ת
  3. (religion) a tau cross

Czech

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈtau̯]

Noun

tau n (indeclinable)

  1. tau (Greek letter)

Further reading

  • tau in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu
  • tau in Akademický slovník cizích slov, 1995, at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch tau, thau, from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû). Doublet of taw, tav.

Pronunciation

Noun

tau n (plural taus, diminutive tautje n)

  1. tau (Greek letter)

Further reading

  • tau (letter) on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia nl

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtɑu̯/, [ˈt̪ɑ̝u̯]
  • Rhymes: -ɑu
  • Syllabification(key): tau

Noun

tau

  1. tau (Greek letter)
  2. tauon, tau (elementary particle)

Declension

Derived terms

Further reading

  • “tau”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎[3] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2023-07-03

Anagrams

  • -tua

French

Alternative forms

  • (in the plural) taus (1990 spelling reform)

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /to/
  • Homophones: taus, taux, tôt

Noun

tau m (plural tau or taus)

  1. tau (Greek letter)
  2. (physics) tau, tauon

Derived terms

  • tauique

Further reading

  • “tau”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

  • tua

German Low German

Alternative forms

  • to (in some dialects)

Etymology

Middle Low German tô.

Preposition

tau

  1. (in some dialects) to

Derived terms

  • taum
  • taun
  • taur

Hokkien

Huichol

Noun

tau

  1. sun

Hungarian

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈtɒu]
  • Hyphenation: tau
  • Rhymes: -u

Noun

tau (plural tauk)

  1. tau (Greek letter)

Declension

Iban

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tauʔ/

Verb

tau

  1. ought, should

Icelandic

Etymology

Borrowed from Danish tøj.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tʰøyː/
  • Rhymes: -øyː

Noun

tau n (genitive singular taus, no plural)

  1. fabric
  2. clothing

Declension

Indonesian

Etymology 1

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ta.ʊ/
  • Hyphenation: ta.u

Verb

tau

  1. (colloquial) to know

Etymology 2

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /taʊ/

Noun

tau

  1. the Greek letter tau (Τ or τ)

Further reading

  • “tau” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

Italian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtaw/
  • Rhymes: -aw
  • Hyphenation: tàu

Noun

tau m or f (invariable)

  1. tau (Greek letter)

Anagrams

  • -uta, tua

Japanese

Romanization

tau

  1. Rōmaji transcription of たう

Kambera

Verb

tau

  1. person

References

  • Marian Klamer (1998) A Grammar of Kambera, Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 328

Kapampangan

Alternative forms

  • tauo (Spanish orthography, obsolete)
  • tawu (Súlat Wáwâ)

Etymology 1

From Proto-Philippine *tau, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tau, from Proto-Austronesian *Cau.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtau/, [ˈtäː.u]
  • Hyphenation: ta‧u

Noun

táu

  1. person
  2. human

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /təˈu/, [təˈuː]
  • Hyphenation: ta‧u

Noun

taú

  1. feast; party; banquet

Kendayan

Numeral

tau

  1. three

Lithuanian

Pronoun

tau

  1. second-person singular dative of tu

Malay

Alternative forms

  • tahu
  • تاهو

Etymology 1

From Proto-Malayic *tahu(ʔ), from Proto-Malayo-Chamic, from Proto-Malayo-Sumbawan, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqu, from Proto-Austronesian *Caqu.

Pronunciation

  • (Northern Peninsular Malay) IPA(key): /tau/
  • IPA(key): /ta.u/
  • Rhymes: -au, -u

Verb

tau

  1. Nonstandard spelling of tahu.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from English tau, from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tau/

Noun

tau (Jawi spelling تاو, plural tau-tau, informal 1st possessive tauku, 2nd possessive taumu, 3rd possessive taunya)

  1. the Greek letter tau (Τ or τ)

Further reading

  • “tau” in Pusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu | Malay Literary Reference Centre, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2017.

Maori

Etymology 1

From Proto-Polynesian *taqu (compare Hawaiian kau), from Proto-Oceanic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqun (compare Malay tahun, Tagalog taón).

Noun

tau

  1. year (time it takes for the Earth to complete one revolution of the Sun)
  2. year (time it takes for any planetary body to make one revolution around another body)
  3. year (a period between set dates that mark a year)
  4. year (scheduled part of a calendar year spent in a specific activity)
  5. year (Julian year)
  6. year (level or grade at school or college)

Etymology 2

From Proto-Polynesian *tau, from Proto-Oceanic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taʀuq (compare Malay taruh).

Verb

tau

  1. to settle

Etymology 3

From Proto-Polynesian *tau, from Proto-Oceanic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqu, from Proto-Austronesian *Caqu (compare Malay tahu).

Noun

tau (used in the form mātau)

  1. knowledge

Verb

tau (used in the form mātau)

  1. (stative) to know

References

  • “tau” in John C. Moorfield, Te Aka: Maori–English, English–Maori Dictionary and Index, 3rd edition, Longman/Pearson Education New Zealand, 2011, →ISBN.

Minangkabau

Etymology

From Proto-Malayic *tahu(ʔ), from Proto-Malayo-Chamic, from Proto-Malayo-Sumbawan, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqu, from Proto-Austronesian *Caqu.

Verb

tau

  1. to know

Niuean

Etymology 1

From Proto-Polynesian *taqu, from Proto-Oceanic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taqun.

Noun

tau

  1. year

Etymology 2

From Proto-Polynesian *tau, from Proto-Oceanic, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taʀuŋ.

Verb

tau

  1. fight

North Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian twā. Compare Mooring North Frisian twäär, tou.

Pronunciation

IPA(key): /tau/

Numeral

tau

  1. (Föhr-Amrum, Heligoland, Sylt) two

Coordinate terms

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From Old Norse tog (rope).

Noun

tau n (definite singular tauet, indefinite plural tau, definite plural taua or tauene)

  1. a rope
  2. (physics) tau lepton
  3. tau (Greek letter)
Synonyms
  • (rope): rep, reip
Derived terms
  • ståltau
  • taubane
  • tauverk

Etymology 2

Verb

tau

  1. imperative of taue

References

  • “tau” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology 1

From earlier and Old Norse tog (“rope”), from Proto-Germanic *taugō.

Alternative forms

  • tog (superseeded)

Noun

tau n (definite singular tauet, indefinite plural tau, definite plural taua)

  1. a rope
Synonyms
  • (rope): reip
Derived terms
  • ståltau
  • taubane
  • tauverk

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).

Noun

tau m (definite singular tauen, indefinite plural tauar, definite plural tauane)

  1. tau: The letter Τ/τ in the Greek, Hebrew and ancient Semitic alphabets, being the nineteenth letter of the Classical and Modern Greek, the twenty-first letter of Old and Ancient Greek.
  2. (physics) tau lepton

References

  • “tau” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Anagrams

  • Tau, tua

Occitan

Etymology

From Latin talis.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /taw/

Adjective

tau m (feminine singular tala, masculine plural taus, feminine plural talas)

  1. (Gascony, Provençal, Limousin, Vivaro-alpine, Auvergne) such

Alternative forms

  • tal

Polish

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû), from Phoenician 𐤕 (t /⁠taw⁠/).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /taw/
  • Rhymes: -aw
  • Syllabification: tau

Noun

tau n (indeclinable)

  1. tau (Greek letter Τ, τ)

Further reading

  • tau in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Portuguese

Pronunciation

  • Homophone: tal (Brazil)
  • Rhymes: -aw
  • Hyphenation: tau

Noun

tau m (plural taus)

  1. tau (name of the Greek letter Τ, τ)
  2. (physics) tauon

Sotho

Noun

tau class 9/10 (plural ditau)

  1. lion

Descendants

  • → Phuthi: idawû

Spanish

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtau/ [ˈt̪au̯]
  • Rhymes: -au
  • Syllabification: tau

Noun

tau f (plural taus)

  1. tau; the Greek letter Τ, τ
  2. tauon (elementary particle)
    Synonym: tauón

See also

  • (Greek script letter names) letra; alfa, beta, gamma, delta, épsilon, dseda, eta, zeta, iota, kappa, lambda, mi, ni, xi, ómicron, pi, ro, sigma, tau, ípsilon, fi, ji, psi, omega (Category: es:Greek letter names)
  • (leptons) leptón; electrón, muón, tau/tauón, neutrino electrónico, neutrino muónico, neutrino tauónico

Further reading

  • “tau”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

Tahitian

Adjective

tau

  1. some

Synonyms

  • nau

References

  • Yves Lemaître, Lexique du tahitien contemporain (Current Tahitian lexicon), 1995.
  • “tau” in Dictionnaire en ligne Tahitien/Français (Online Tahitian–French Dictionary), by the Tahitian Academy.

Tausug

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tau.

Noun

tau

  1. person
  2. human

Derived terms

  • pagkatau

Ternate

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈta.u]

Verb

tau

  1. to pull

Conjugation

References

  • Rika Hayami-Allen (2001) A descriptive study of the language of Ternate, the northern Moluccas, Indonesia, University of Pittsburgh

Tetum

Etymology

From Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taʀuq, compare Maori tau and Indonesian taruh.

Verb

tau

  1. to put, to place

Tocharian B

Etymology

From Middle Chinese 斗 (MC tuwX).

Noun

tau ? sg (irregular plural towä or tom or taum)

  1. a dry measure, roughly equivalent to ten quarts or 1.25 pecks

References

Tokelauan

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈta.u]
  • Hyphenation: ta‧u

Etymology 1

From Proto-Polynesian *te-qa-u.

Determiner

tau

  1. (alienable, definite) thy, your
See also

Etymology 2

From Proto-Polynesian *taqu. Cognates include Hawaiian kau and Samoan tau.

Noun

tau

  1. season
  2. weather
  3. climate

Etymology 3

From Proto-Polynesian *tau. Cognates include Tongan tou and Samoan tau.

Verb

tau

  1. (transitive) to pick
Usage notes
  • tau is used to refer to flowers and fruits, with the exception of the coconut and pandanus.

Etymology 4

From Proto-Polynesian *tau. Cognates include Tongan tau and Samoan tau.

Verb

tau

  1. (intransitive) to fight; to quarrel
  2. (intransitive) to compete

Etymology 5

From Proto-Polynesian *tau. Cognates include Maori tau and Samoan tau.

Verb

tau (plural tatau)

  1. (intransitive) to hit
  2. (intransitive) to land
  3. (intransitive) to arrive
  4. (intransitive) to anchor
  5. (intransitive, of fish) to settle down

Etymology 6

From Proto-Polynesian *tau. Cognates include Tuvaluan tau and Samoan tau.

Verb

tau

  1. (transitive, of months) to count

Etymology 7

From Proto-Polynesian *tau. Cognates include Rapa tau and Samoan tau.

Noun

tau

  1. The point where the keel meets the stern of the canoe.

Etymology 8

Noun

tau

  1. Fresh nest fern leaves, used to cover a traditional oven.

Etymology 9

Particle

tau

  1. Used to indicate the exclusiveness of the following noun or pronoun; just, only, merely

Etymology 10

Particle

tau

  1. Used to indicate the focus lies on the following noun; concerning, regarding

Etymology 11

Particle

tau

  1. Used to indicate that the action of the following verb is beginning; starting to; beginning to

Etymology 12

Verb

tau

  1. Only used in tau ma (“to be fed up with”)

References

  • R. Simona, editor (1986), Tokelau Dictionary‎[4], Auckland: Office of Tokelau Affairs, page 342

Tongan

Etymology

From Proto-Polynesian *tau, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *taʀuŋ.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ta.u/

Verb

tau

  1. fight

Tswana

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tà.ú/

Noun

tau class 9/10 (plural ditau)

  1. lion

Vietnamese

Pronunciation

  • (Hà Nội) IPA(key): [taw˧˧]
  • (Huế) IPA(key): [taw˧˧]
  • (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA(key): [ta(ː)w˧˧]

Pronoun

tau

  1. Central Vietnam form of tao (“I/me”)

Anagrams

  • tua

Welsh

Pronunciation

  • (North Wales) IPA(key): /taɨ̯/
  • (South Wales) IPA(key): /tai̞/

Verb

tau

  1. (literary) third-person singular present indicative/future of tewi

Mutation

White Hmong

Etymology

From Proto-Hmong-Mien *təuk, from Old Chinese 得 (OC *tɯːɡ).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tau̯˧/

Verb

tau

  1. to get, gain, obtain
  2. (used preverbally) perfective action marker
    Kuv tsis tau ua. ― I didn't do that.
  3. (used postverbally) potential mood marker
    Ua tau. ― May be done.

References

  • Heimbach, Ernest E. (1979) White Hmong — English Dictionary‎[5], SEAP Publications, →ISBN.

Woccon

Noun

tau

  1. fire

Source: wiktionary.org