O The sixteenth letter of the Phoenician and early Greek alphabets, the fifteenth in English and the fourteenth in Latin. Between N and O the Phoenician and the Ionic Greek alphabet have a sibilant—in Greek Ξ＝x. The Western Greek alphabet had a different symbol, Χ, for the sound of x and placed it at the end, as did its descendant the Latin alphabet. The original form of ο was a more or less roughly formed circle. The Aramaic 
and Hebrew ע, which seem so different, arise from a circle left open at the top, 
, a form which can be traced in Aramaic from the 5th or 6th century B.C. In the Greek alphabets the circle appears sometimes with a dot in the centre, but in many cases it is doubtful whether this mark is, intentional, or is only the result of fixing a sharp point there while describing the circle. Sometimes O is lozenge-shaped ◊ and rarely (in Arcadia and Elis) rectangular □. In many varieties of the Greek alphabet this symbol was used, as it always was in Latin, for the long as well as the short o-sound and also for the long vowel (in the Ionic alphabet written ου) which arose from contraction of two vowels or the loss of a consonant (δηλοῦτε＝δηλόετε, οἴκους＝οἴκονς). As early as the 8th century Ionic Greek had invented a separate symbol for the long o-sound, viz. Ω. This when borrowed by other dialects showed at first some variety of usage, though practically none in form. As this was placed at the end of the ordinary (not the numeral) Greek alphabet, “alpha and omega” has become a proverbial phrase for first and last. The Greeks themselves, however, did not call Ω omega (great o) nor did they call Ο omicron (little o), though these names are given even in modern Greek grammars. The former was called simply o and the latter u (ου, pronounced as oo in moon). The Hebrew and probably the Phoenician name for O was Ain (Ayin), and in the Semitic alphabet, which does not indicate vowels, the symbol stood for a “voiced glottal stop” and also for a “voiced velar spirant” (Zimmern). The most important feature of this vowel is the rounding of the lips in its production, which, according to its degree, modifies the nature of the vowel considerably, as can be observed in the pronunciation of the increasingly rounded series saw, no, who. In Attic Greek Ο and Ω were not really a pair, for ο + ο became not ω but ου, ο being a close and ω an open sound. In Latin the converse was more nearly true. Though short o changed in the Latin of the last age of the Roman republic to u in unaccented syllables always (except after u whether vowel or consonant), and sometimes also in accented syllables, this was not equally true of vulgar Latin, as is shown by the Romance languages. In English also the short and the long o are of different qualities, the short in words like not, got being in Sweet’s phonetic terminology a low-back-wide-round, the long in words like no a mid-back-wide-round. The long vowel becomes more rounded as it is being pronounced, so that it ends in a u-sound, though this is not so noticeable in weak syllables like the final syllable of follow. The so-called modified ö is a rounded e-sound found in several varieties. The sound heard in words like the German Götter is, according to Sweet, a low-front-wide-round, while Jespersen regards it as not low but middle. A mid-front-narrow-round vowel is found short in French words like peu, long in jeûne and in endings like that of honteuse. The Norse sound written ø is of the same nature. (P. Gi.)
OAK (O. Eng., āc), a word found, variously modified, in all Germanic languages, and applied to plants of the genus Quercus, natural order Fagaceae (Cupuliferae of de Candolle), including some of the most important timber trees of the north temperate zone. All the species are arborescent or shrubby, varying in size from the most stately of forest trees to the dwarfish bush. Monoecious, and bearing their male flowers in catkins, they are readily distinguished from the rest of the catkin-bearing trees by their peculiar fruit, an acorn or nut, enclosed at the base in a woody cup, formed by the consolidation of numerous involucral bracts developed beneath the fertile flower, simultaneously with a cup-like expansion of the thalamus, to which the bracteal scales are more or less adherent. The ovary, three-celled at first, but becoming one-celled and one-seeded by abortion, is surmounted by an inconspicuous perianth with six small teeth. The male flowers are in small clusters on the usually slender and pendent stalk, forming an interrupted catkin; the stamens vary in number, usually six to twelve. The alternate leaves are more or less deeply sinuated or cut in many species, but in some of the deciduous and many of the evergreen kinds are nearly or quite entire on the margin.
The oaks are widely distributed over the temperate parts of Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America. In the western hemisphere they range along the Mexican highlands and the Andes far into the tropics, while in the Old World the genus, well represented in the Himalayas and the hills of China, exists likewise in the peninsula of Malacca, in the Indian Archipelago and Malaya to the Philippine Islands and Borneo. On the mountains of Europe and North America they grow only at moderate elevations, and none approach the arctic circle. The multitude of species and the many intermediate forms render their exact limitation difficult, but those presenting sufficiently marked characters to justify specific rank probably approach 300 in number.
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| From Kotschy, Die Eichen Europas, Vienna, 1862, Plate XXXII. Fig. 1.—Flowers of Oak (Quercus). |
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𝑎, Diagram of, male flower. |
The well-known Q. Robur, one of the most valued of the genus, and the most celebrated in history and myth, may be taken as a type of the oaks with sinuated leaves. Though known in England, where it is the only indigenous species, as the British oak, it is a native of most of the milder parts of Europe, extending from the shores of the Atlantic to the Ural; its most northern limit is attained in Norway, where it is found wild up to lat. 63°, and near the Lindesnaes forms woods of some extent, the trees occasionally acquiring a considerable size. In western Russia it flourishes in lat. 60°, but on the slope of the Ural the 56th parallel is about its utmost range. Its northern limit nearly coincides with that of successful wheat cultivation. Southwards it extends to Sardinia, Sicily and the Morea. In Asia it is found on the Caucasus, but does not pass the Ural ridge into Siberia. In Britain and in most of its Continental habitats two varieties exist, regarded by many as distinct species: one, Q. pedunculata, has the acorns, generally two or more together, on long stalks, and the leaves nearly sessile; while in the other, Q. sessiliflora, the fruit is without or with a very short peduncle, and the leaves are furnished with well-developed petioles. But,
