b

Letter (1)

1. (letter, lowercase) The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Numeral (1)

1. (lowercase) The second numeral symbol of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Symbol (1)

b

1. latitude in the galactic coordinate system
2. barn
3. bit
4. bye
5. (size) big

Letter (2) capitalized: B

1. (letter, uppercase) The second letter of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.
   • Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof […]1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC

Numeral (2) capitalized: B

1. (uppercase) The second numeral symbol of the English alphabet, called bee and written in the Latin script.

Noun (1) capitalized: B

B (usually uncountable, plural Bs)

1. (usually) The quantity one billion (1,000,000,000), usually used to signify a sum of money.
   • $2.8 B
2. (UK, usually) The grade of pencil, “black”, that makes darker marks than grade HB but lighter marks than grade 2B; a pencil with soft lead.
3. (abbreviation, usually) Abbreviation of bishop.
   • 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. d4 exd4 4. e5 Ne4 5. Qxd4 d5 6. exd6 e.p. Nxd6 7. Bg5 Nc6 8. Qe3+ Be7 9. Nbd2 0-0 10. 0-0-0 Re8 11. Kb1 (=)2022, “2023 Laws of Chess”, in FIDE, page 23
   • The correct answer is 1.Rxf6 Rxf6 2.Rf1 Raf8 3.Qg5 Kg7 4.Nh5+
     Other sub-variations work, such as playing 2.Qg5 then 3.Rf1 or playing 4.Bxf6+ first before playing 5.Nh5+.2023 August 12, GM Noël Studer, “Mastering Chess Puzzles: The Comprehensive Guide to Effective Problem Solving”, in Next Level Chess
4. (usually) The number of balls faced by a batsman.
5. (usually) Bass.
6. (Australia, countable, euphemistic, usually) Bastard.
   • I mean, some little B put in a protest because apparently a pineapple isn't strictly a flower.2003, Gina Riley and Jane Turner, That's Unusual, Sydney: ABC Books, page 153
7. (countable, euphemistic, usually) Bitch.
   • [quoting an ethnographer’s account:] He then called me a “dumb B” and hung up the phone. Meredith pauses, looks at Graciela, and says, “Okay, I need you to be as specific as you can, so that means you’re going to have to tell me what he called you, exactly.” […] Graciela grabs the pen and writes...2011 December 25, Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Second Edition, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 99
   • And then he looked again and she wasn’t there. So he probably thought, ‘Stupid B’. You know.2016 May 23, Caron Lipman, Co-habiting with Ghosts: Knowledge, Experience, Belief and the Domestic Uncanny, Routledge, →ISBN, page 179
8. (Multicultural-London-English, abbreviation, usually, chiefly African-American Vernacular) Abbreviation of blood or blud: used to address a friend, especially a male.
   • You’re a fuckboy whose most used phrase is, "wag one b, wys?"[.] Pulling girls at Gravity Monday is the highlight of your week. You constantly send selfies flexing your muscles and showing off your ‘six pack.’2018 October 8, Ruby Bloom, “What your favourite social media says about you”, in The Tab
9. (countable, usually) A B cell.
   • Mind your Bs and Ts
     […] And if the combined efforts of macrophages, b cells and t cells are sufficient, the pathogen will be beaten back and eventually cleared from the body.2020 May 2, “Leaving lockdown means understanding immune responses to the virus”, in The Economist

Symbol (2) capitalized: B

B

1. byte

Noun (2) capitalized: B

B (plural Bs)

1. A personality type describing people who are relaxed and easygoing and able to engage in leisure activities without worrying about work.
2. An academic grade, better than a C and worse than an A.
3. Signifies a second-tier or second class of a given commodity, group, or category, as in B-movie, B-list, etc.
   • The television studio revived some of its B characters for the spinoff.
   • The baddest of the Bs, then, are a rare, precious mix of jerry-built production values and jazzed-up creative juices. But that’s not to say that even with a budget, a B movie can’t still bounce way off the wall, […]1999, Michael Sauter, The Worst Movies of All Time, Or, What Were They Thinking?, page 268
4. The alternate or secondary part, such as the back side of a phonograph record. Contrasted with ‘A’, which is the primary part.
5. The seventh note in the C major scale.

Proper noun capitalized: B

B

1. A programming language from which C is derived.