See Also:

ph. (iou)



ph.
A consonantal digraph, pronounced [f], used in classical Latin to repr. the Greek letter ¦Õ (cogn. with Sanskrit bh, Germanic b), and occurring in English words derived from Latin or Greek words or elements. In late popular and medieval Latin and in Romance langs. f was often substituted for ph, as now regularly in Spanish, Italian, and some French words, whence the spelling of English fancy, fantasy. In phantom and pheasant (French fant?me, faisan) there has been etymological reversion to ph.