tau.
a rope
Meaning & usage
a rope
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Danish toug (now spelt tov), from Old Norse tog, from Proto-Germanic *tugą. The unusual spelling ⟨oug⟩ was pronounced according to dialectal Norwegian (as in baug, plog). Underlying dialectal forms continue the Old Norse ablaut variant taug, from Proto-Germanic *taugō. Standardized as taug in 1907, the spelling was altered to tau in 1917. Cognate with Swedish tåg (from *tugą) and Icelandic taug (from *taugō). Closely related also with Norwegian tog (“train”), which comes via Middle Low German from *tugiz, a stem variant of *tugą. All ultimately from the root of *teuhaną (“to pull”). To the contrary, the similarity with Dutch touw, German Tau (“strong rope”) is merely accidental (although this West Germanic word did influence the Scandinavian one, e.g. in compounds like tauverk).
tau (Greek letter)
tau lepton
Where this word comes from
Ultimately from Ancient Greek ταῦ (taû).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.