Guide · Letters
Old English letters and pronunciation
Old English is written with letters that Modern English no longer uses: þ (thorn), ð (eth), æ (ash) and ƿ (wynn). Thorn and eth spell the sounds Modern English writes th, ash is a vowel, and wynn is w. Modern editions add macrons to mark long vowels.
| Letter | Name | Sound | Example entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| þ | thorn | /θ/, sometimes /ð/ | þegn /θejn/ |
| ð | eth | /θ/, sometimes /ð/ | sceaða [ˈʃæ͜ɑ.ðɑ] |
| æ | ash | /æ/; long ǣ /æː/ | dæg /dæj/ |
| ƿ | wynn | /w/ | wif /wiːf/ |
þ and ð
þ, thorn, and ð, eth, spell the dental fricative. Both letters cover two sounds that Modern English still distinguishes in spelling: the voiceless /θ/ of thin and the voiced /ð/ of this. Scribes used the two letters for the same consonants, with ð more common in the middle and at the end of a word. þegn is /θejn/; eorþe is /ˈe͜or.θe/, with [ˈe͜orˠ.ðe] as the voiced realisation. Each letter also has its own entry: þ and ð.
æ
æ, ash, is a vowel, not a consonant. Short æ is the vowel of Modern English cat; long ǣ is held longer. dæg is /dæj/. In modern editions the long vowel is written with a macron, ǣ, and the short one without.
ƿ
ƿ, wynn, spells /w/, as in wif /wiːf/. It was replaced by the letter w in Middle English. Wiktionary's page titles normally use w, so this dictionary's headwords do too; the letter itself has an entry at ƿ.
Macrons
A macron marks a long vowel: ā ē ī ō ū ȳ. It is an editorial mark — manuscripts normally do not write it, and Wiktionary's Old English page titles usually leave it out. Search here ignores macrons, so wif and wīf reach the same entry.
How to type them
The search box on the home page has buttons for þ, ð, æ and the long vowels ā ē ī ō ū ȳ; tap one to insert it at the cursor. For ƿ, type w: the search folds ƿ and w to the same key, so a word can be found either way. The four letters can also be copied from this page or typed by Unicode code point: U+00FE þ, U+00F0 ð, U+00E6 æ, U+01BF ƿ.
Where to go next
- Noun declension classes — strong, weak and minor classes, with the forms that show the difference.
- Dictionaries online compared — Bosworth–Toller, Wiktionary and this site.
- cyning — an entry with IPA, syllables and a full declension table.
Last updated 8 November 2026. IPA transcriptions are quoted from the linked entry pages, which take their data from Wiktionary under CC BY-SA 4.0.