double-u

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

double-u

Alternative forms

double U, double-U
double you, double-you, doubleyou

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English doble W, in reference to the letter's origins as a ligature of two Us or Vs (V originally being a typographical variant of U).

The failure of the sequence /bljuː/ to simplify in this word's bisyllabic pronunciation (as in blue) is doubtlessly due to the letter U's name. For colloquial pronunciations without /l/, compare Straya.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈdʌb.(ə)l.juː/, /ˌdʌb.əlˈjuː/
(colloquial or in rapid speech) IPA^(key): /ˈdʌb.ə.juː/, /ˈdʌb.juː/, /ˈdʌb.jə/
Audio (General American): (file)
Hyphenation: dou‧ble-u

Noun

double-u (plural double-ues or double-u's)

The name of the Latin script letter W/w.
Alternative name of the Latin-script digraph ⟨UU⟩.
(euphemistic) The WC; the toilet.
- 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 234:
  She would try the front door, and try the back door, and look in the windows; and once she even looked in the double-u.

Derived terms

dubya

Descendants

→ Alabama: dabiyo
→ Malay: dabel yu
→ Portuguese: dáblio / dâblio
→ Russian: дабл-ю (dabl-ju)
→ Tagalog: dobolyu

Translations

the name of the Latin-script letter W/w

Alabama: dabiyo
Arabic: دَابِلْيُو m (dabelyū), دَابْلِيُو m (dabliyū), دوبلڤه ?, دُوبِلِڥِه m (dubleveh)
Asturian: uve doble (ast) f
Bengali: ডব্লিউ (ḍobliu)
Bulgarian: дубъл-ве n (dubăl-ve)
Burmese: ဒဗ္ဗလျူ (dabba.lyu)
Catalan: ve doble (ca) f
Chinese:
Mandarin: (English letter names are called as in English, no other standard Mandarin name exists)
Czech: dvojité vé (cs) n
Danish: dobbelt-v n
Dutch: wee (nl)
Esperanto: duobla vo (eo), vavo (eo), vuo (eo), vu (eo), ĝermana vo
Finnish: kaksoisvee (fi)
French: double vé (fr) m
German: We n
Greek: ντάμπλ’γιου n (ntámpl’giou)
Hawaiian: wē
Hindi: डब्ल्यू (ḍablyū)
Hungarian: dupla vé (hu)
Icelandic: tvöfalt vaff
Ido: we (io)
Indonesian: we (id)
Interlingua: please add this translation if you can
Irish: wae
Italian: doppia vu f, vu doppia f
Japanese: ダブリュー (ja) (daburyū)
Korean: 더블유 (deobeuryu), 다블유 (dabeuryu) (North Korean)
Malay: dabliu, dabel yu
Marathi: डबल-यू (ḍabal-yū)
Middle English: doble W
Norwegian:
Bokmål: dobbelt-v n

Nynorsk: dobbel-v n, dobbelt-v n
Occitan: ve dobla f
Polish: wu (pl) n
Portuguese: duplo vê m, (Brazilian) dáblio (pt) m, (European) dâblio m
Russian: да́бл-ю n (dábl-ju) (English), дубль-вэ́ n (dublʹ-vɛ́)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: ^{(please verify)} дупло ве n

Latin: ^{(please verify)} duplo ve n
Spanish: doble ve (es), uve doble (es) f, ve dupla f, ve doble (es) f, doble uve / u f, u valona f (disused)
Swedish: dubbel-v (sv) n
Tagalog: dobolyu, wa (Abakada)
Thai: ดับเบิลยู (th) (dàp-bə̂n-yuu), ดับบลิว (th) (dàp-bliu)
Volapük: please add this translation if you can
Welsh: w f