Z

Z, 26th and last letter in the English alphabet. It was taken from the Latin alphabet, which derived it from a Greek letter ultimately based upon an Egyptian hieroglyph.

The normal z sound (a voiced alveolar fricative), occurring in such words as zest and buzz, is produced by placing the tip of the tongue near the sockets of the upper front teeth and vibrating the vocal cords as air moves over the flattened edge of the tongue (see Phonetics). Although z occurs in some words derived from Anglo-Saxon, such as freeze and graze, its appearance in a word (especially initially) generally indicates a foreign origin, most often Greek (as in zeal) and occasionally Arabic (as in zero).