Zayin

The Proto-Sinaitic glyph may have been called , may not have been based on a hieroglyph, and may have depicted a "fetter". An alternative view is that it is based on the "copper ingot" hieroglyph (𓈔) in the form of an axeblade, after noting that the name "zayin" has roots in Aramaic to refer to "Arms," "Armor," and "Metal used for arms." The Phoenician letter appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. In Hebrew, ' () means "weapon", the verb ' () means "to arm", and the verb '''' () means "to arm oneself". == Arabic zāy ==

The letter is named . It has two forms, depending on its position in the word: The similarity to ''''   is likely a function of the original Syriac forms converging to a single symbol, requiring that one of them be distinguished as a dot; a similar process occurred to Gimel (letter)| and Heth (letter)|. In Maltese, the corresponding letter to is . Variant A variant letter of '' named že'' is used in Persian with three dots above instead of just one dot above. The letter is used in a number of languages, such as Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, Urdu and Uyghur (see K̡ona Yezik̡). ==Hebrew zayin==

In modern Hebrew, the frequency of the usage of zayin, out of all the letters, is 0.88%. Hebrew spelling: In modern Hebrew, the combination (zayin followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote as in vion. Significance Numerical value (gematria) In gematria, zayin represents the number seven, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years it means 7000 (i.e. in numbers would be the future date 7754). Use in Torah scroll Zayin, in addition to ʻayin, gimel, teth, nun, shin, and tzadi, is one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll). ==Syriac zain==

Zain is a consonant with the sound which is a voiced alveolar fricative. ==Character encodings==