cee
Pluralcees
- 1The written-out name of the letter C or c of the Latin alphabet.
Over the phone, he spelled his surname slowly: cee, oh, ell, ee.
Beginning readers sometimes confuse the cee with the kay because both can sound alike.
Note
Written out, the letter becomes a word: cee is how the name of C appears in prose when spelling must be shown, alongside ef, ell and ee. Will Rogers's The Stonking Steps (2004) plays with this, spelling out nectar, flowers and garden letter by letter in a single line. The name came through Middle English cee, and like any ordinary noun it takes a plural, cees.
- 2An object or component formed in the curved shape of the letter C, such as a cee spring.
Each wheel of the antique carriage rested on a steel cee that softened the ride.
Restorers forged new cees to replace the rusted springs under the coach.
Note
Here the letter's name has become the name of a shape. The best-known case is the cee spring of early carriages, a curved band of steel bent like a C that flexed under load and cushioned the body from road shocks. Because cee works as an ordinary noun, it can stand alone for the part itself and take a plural: a coach rides on its cees.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English cee.