PEʼ

[פ; final,ף].

The seventeenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, also later used outside of the Hebrew Scriptures as a number to denote eighty. It is one of five Hebrew letters that have a different form when used as the final letter of a word. The name assigned to the letter means “mouth.”

From the Hebrew peʼ comes the Greek pi, from which the Latin and English “p” is derived. The Hebrew sound corresponds to our English “p,” when it has the point (dagesh lene) in it; but without this point it is pronounced like “ph,” as in “philosophy.” This letter initiates each of the eight verses in the Hebrew text of Psalm 119:129-136.