One-Letter Words, a Dictionary (4 page)

C IN PRINT AND PROVERB

1. (in literature)
Said of handwriting:
“By my life, this is my lady’s hand. These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus she makes she her great P’s.”
—William Shakespeare,
Twelfth Night,
II.v.86–88 (The speaker here has unwittingly spelled out the word
cut,
slang for the female pudenda. The joke is carried further by “her
great P’s.
”)

2. (in literature)
“C is where murder took place.”
—James Joyce,
Ulysses

3. (in literature)
Described as an infuriating letter:
“[Volume 3 of
The Oxford English Dictionary,
] embracing the entirety of the infuriating letter
C (which the lexicographers found unusually
filled with ambiguities and complexities, not least because of its frequent overlaps with the letters G,
K, and S)—should be dedicated to [Queen Victoria in 1896].”
—Simon Winchester,
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the
Making of “The Oxford English Dictionary”

4. (in literature)
“C is the crescent, the moon.”
—Victor Hugo, quoted in
ABZ
by Mel Gooding

5.
n.
A written representation of the letter.
On his arm, she saw the tattoo, a blue letter C.
—Philip K. Dick,
The Man in the High Castle

6.
n.
A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter.

GENEROUS AMOUNTS

7.
n.
A Roman numeral for 100.
[T]he first letter of his name was struck from the inscription on his [Augustus’s] statue by a bolt of
lightning. This was understood to mean that he would only live for a further hundred days, for that was the significance of the letter “C,” and that it would come to pass that he would be included among the gods, for “aesar,” the remaining part of the name “Caesar,” means “god” in the language of the Etruscans.
—Suetonius,
Lives of the Caesars

8.
n.
With a line over it, a Roman numeral for 100,000.

9.
n.
(slang)
A one-hundred-dollar bill,
as in “C-note.”
When a starlet or a pretty showgirl sat beside
Costello, there would be a C-note staring at her when the waiter removed her plate.
—Evan Thomas,
The Man to See

10.
n.
A shoe width size
(wider than B, narrower than D).

11.
n.
A brassiere cup size.
The first contraceptive pill released in 1960 had ten times as much [estrogen] as versions that came along later. The sale of C-cup bras increased 50 percent during the sixties, as all that estrogen caused women’s breasts to swell.
—Gail Collins,
America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls,
Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines

THE KEY OF C

12.
n.
C clef:
a symbol placed upon a staff to indicate the location of middle C.

13.
n.
The first note in a C-major musical scale.
You can think of [the note C in a C scale] as “home.”
Most songs will go on a journey, but they will always want to come back to their home eventually.
—E. D. Hirsch,
What Your Fourth Grader Needs to
Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fourth-Grade Education (The Core Knowledge)

14.
n.
A written or printed representation of a musical note C.

15.
n.
A string, key, or pipe tuned to the note C.

16.
n.
The third section in a piece of music.

17.
n.
C hole:
a C-shaped sound hole in a guitar or viol.

IN THIRD PLACE

18.
n.
Something arbitrarily designated C
(e.g., a person, place, or other thing).

19.
n.
Someone called C.
Mr. C glad-handed the boss-men of the ship-breaking concern that would be scrapping the vessel.
—Iain Banks,
The Business
After dinner it was agreed that we should walk, when I had finished a letter to C, part of which I had written in the morning by the kitchen-fire while the mutton was roasting.
—Dorothy Wordsworth,
The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals

20.
n.
A grade in school indicating “average.”

21.
n.
One graded with a C.
A Yale University president some years ago gave this advice to a former president of Ohio State:
“Always be kind to your A and B students. Someday one of them will return to your campus as a good professor. And also be kind to your C students.
Someday one of them will return and build a two-million-dollar science laboratory.”
—John C. Maxwell,
The Winning Attitude

22.
n.
The third in a series.

MISCELLANEOUS

23.
n.
The third letter of the alphabet.
Neither the letter C, they say, nor the letter K had ever harmed the city.
—Julian,
Misopogon

24.
n.
Any spoken sound represented by the letter.
The sound vibration of the consonant C means
“beauty, beautify.”
—Joseph E. Rael,
Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name

25.
n.
C-rations:
food provided to soldiers during combat.
C-rations were two cans, smaller than a normal soup can. One held crackers, soluble coffee or tea, lemonade, bouillon, sugar, toilet paper, candy and four cigarettes. The other can held food to be warmed. Beef stew, chicken and noodles, Spam and potatoes, corned beef hash, etc.
—John C. McManus,
The Deadly Brotherhood

SHAPES AND SIZES

26.
n.
Something having the shape of a C.
She had this very distinctive shape, seemingly comprised of interlocking S’s and C’s that made her look like she would fit exactly against him if he were to embrace her.
—Jeremy Dyson,
Never Trust a Rabbit
I bent and slipped off my aunt’s shoes, then stood back as she settled herself onto her side, her knees drawn up as much as age and arthritis would allow.
Her thin body formed a wizened letter C in the center of the soft yellow sheet.
—Kathryn R. Wall,
Perdition House: A Bay Tanner Mystery
Houdini’s tomb was the largest and most splendid in the cemetery, completely out of keeping with the general modesty, even austerity, of the other headstones and slabs. It was a curious structure, like a spacious balcony detached from the side of a palace, a letter C of marble balustrade with pillars like serifs at either end, enclosing a long low bench.
—Michael Chabon,
The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier & Clay
You know, we look like the letter C. We are very susceptible to a person of the opposite sex, some other circle half complete, coming up and joining with us—completing the circle that way—and giving us a burst of euphoria and energy that feels like the wholeness that a full connection with the universe produces.
—James Redfield,
The Celestine Prophecy

27.
n.
C post:
“a C-shaped pillar on the side of a car, which connects the floor and roof.”—Dr. John Burkardt

28.
n.
C clamp:
a clamp in the shape of the letter C.

29.
n.
C-scroll:
an ornamental design, as on furniture.
[T]he lower corners of the frame above the arch turn into C-scrolls with characteristic hawks’ bills and acanthus swirls.
—Robert W. Berger,
A Royal
Passion: Louis XIV as Patron of Architecture

30.
n.
C-fold towels:
“paper towels made by folding two opposite sides to meet in the middle, forming a sort of flat C.”—Dr. John Burkardt

31.
n.
C spring:
a coil of wire in the shape of the letter C.

32.
n.
C wrench:
a wrench used to control the focus of a microscope.

SCIENTIFIC MATTERS

33.
n.
A vitamin (ascorbic acid).
Vitamin C is widely reputed to prevent and/or cure the common cold. Although this has not been proved scientifically, it does help the body fight and resist infection. Like beta carotene and vitamin E, vitamin C is an antioxidant. It helps wounds heal, improves the body’s absorption of iron, and is involved in the growth and maintenance of bones, teeth, gums, ligaments, and blood vessels…. Vitamin C is found almost exclusively in fruits and vegetables, although breast milk and organ meats contain small amounts. Citrus fruits, tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and cantaloupe are all excellent sources.
—American Medical Association

34.
n.
(chemistry)
The symbol for the element carbon in the periodic table.

35.
n.
(biology)
Cytosine,
one of the four nitrogenous bases found in DNA nucleotides.

36.
n.
(physics)
The velocity of light
c
in vacuum as in
Albert Einstein’s relativity equation
E
=
mc
²
.

37.
n.
(electronics)
A battery, as in “C supply.”

38.
n.
A high-level programming language.
Programmers based the C programming language on an early programming language by the name of
B (although no programming language known as A
ever existed). Programmers wanted to make programming as easy as possible for themselves, so they made the C programming language look more like actual words that people can understand.
—Wallace Wang,
Beginning Programming for Dummies

39.
n.
A future event caused by something in the present.
[A] feeling of timelessness, the feeling that what we know as time is only the result of a naïve faith in causality—the notion that A in the past
caused
B in the present, which will
cause
C in the future.
—Tom Wolfe,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

40.
n.
a high-level perception of cosmic unity, beyond causality.
[A]ctually A, B, and C are all part of a pattern that can be truly understood only by opening the doors of perception and experiencing it…in this moment…this supreme moment…this
kairos.—Tom Wolfe,
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test