ب

be; ब ba; The second letter of the Urdū or Hindūstānī(and of the Persian and Arabic) alphabet, and the twenty-third consonant of the Nāgarī alphabet,—the third of the labial class. . It is sounded like our b; and when used numerically according to the abjad (q.v.), it stands for two. By way of abbreviation it is occasionally written for the Arabic month rajab, of which word it is the first letter. In words from the Sanskrit, bais commonly substituted for vaor wa; and, generally speaking, vor wis liable to be changed to b, e.g. aberfor aver; sebfor sew.. It is also interchangeable with m and p, e.g. baur= maul; narbadā= narmadā; bādshāh= pādshāh):—ba-kār, s.m. The letter or sound b.