• seventeenth letter of the Latin alphabet, thirteenth consonant
  • phonetic name: "velar voiceless plosive"; sound: push your tongue against your velum and make a pop of air without using your vocal chords
  • Egyptian hieroglyph was a sandy slope or hill
  • Phoenician letter qoph (pronounced "oof") represented the eye of a needle, a double axe, or a monkey (an animal associated with wisdom)
  • Greeks adopted it as their letter qoppa/goppa (uppercase Ϙ, lower case ϙ), although it became obsolete in the sixth century, but was conserved as a numeric sign with a value of 90 (also sometimes represented as ϟ)
  • in Roman, Q became used exclusively in tandem with U to make a "kw" sound; Q is easily identifiable on inscriptions because of its long wavy tail
  • in Rome, Q also stood for numeric value 500
  • in modern English, Q is almost always followed by a U
  • considered by some to be "evil" and "codependent": "'Q' is a letter we might very well spare in our alphabet, if we would but just use the serviceable 'K' as he should be." - Ben Jonson
  • "Q extends below the line because he does not allow himself to be written in a complete word without his trusty comrade and brother U, and to show that he wishes always to have him by his side, he embraces him with his tail from below." - Geoffroy Troy
  • in the word game Scrabble, the only acceptable words with a Q but no U are: qi, qat, qaid, qadi, qoph, qanat, tranq, faqir, sheqel, qabala, qabalah, qindar, qintar, qindarka, mbaqanga, and qwerty, along with their plurals (Full list of words here)
  • Q is the second most rarely used letter in the English alphabet (after Z)
  • in theology, Q (or Q source) is a hypothetical textual source for the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke
  • Q in weight is quintal meaning 100kg
  • Q in biochemistry is glutamine, an amino acid vital to immune functions, metabolic processes and cell development. It is found in high-protein foods like fish, meat, beans and dairy.
  • barred Q (ℚ) in mathematics is the set of all rational numbers
  • IQ stands for intelligence quotient, developed by German psychologist William Stern in 1912
  • in abbreviations, "q." means question (also: Q & A), cue (for stage prompts) or quantity; "QQ" abbreviates quinquennealis, Latin for "every five years"
  • also used in the proper etiquette reminder "mind one's Ps and Qs"
  • Q is common in Latin questioning words: quo, quis, quae, qui, quantum, et al.
  • associated with wisdom, fertilization, hatchet, monkey
  • in shape, Q takes the O structure, with the addition of a line or tail in the lower right corner. It can also be seen as a head and neck, a sprouted seed, or an ovum being fertilized by a sperm
  • Q is also linked to water (aqua) when its tail takes a wavelike form
  • Q is often connected to things considered mysterious, dangerous, or different
  • Q has been appropriated by gay interest groups as an pro-Queer emblem
  • Q in the musical Avenue Q represents one of New York's cheapest neighbourhoods (in relation to Manhattan's posh Avenue A)
  • Q is a CBC radio show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi
  • The Q is the official nickname for Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Vitamin Q (more commonly known as Coenzyme Q10) is an antioxidant which naturally occurs in meat and fish
  • Q-tips are cotton swabs, invented by Leo Gerstenzang in 1920s; the Q stands for "quality"
  • phonetic sound, "cue", is an line-up (queue) or prompt (cue)
  • QWERTY is the most used modern-day keyboard layout on English-language keyboards, designed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873 to minimize typebar jamming on typewriters.
  • NATO phonetic alphabet: QUEBEC
  • "'Q' is a rump with a tail." -Victor Hugo, French poet & playwright
  • "The sound vibration of the consonant 'Q' means 'initiation, eternal quest'." - Joseph E. Rael
  • Q can also abbreviate heat, quart, quarter, quarterly, quartermaster, quarterback, quarto, Quebec, queen, query, question, quire