Word.ws English Dictionary

eta

/ˈiːtə//ˈeɪtə/

eta noun: the seventh letter of the Modern Greek alphabet, the eighth in Old Greek. Also the alternative form of ita.

eta: the seventh letter of the Modern Greek alphabet, the eighth in Old Greek
Image: Mrmw, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

eta (plural etas)

  1. The seventh letter of the Modern Greek alphabet, the eighth in Old Greek.
    • Greek was an exercise in making the familiar strange. Its alphabet mapped onto the Roman alphabet, but only partly so, and often letters did not sound how they looked — a rho (Ρ) was not a P, and an eta (Η) was not an H.2022, R. F. Kuang, Babel, HarperVoyager, page 25
  2. (particle) A kind of electrically neutral meson having zero spin and isospin.

Noun (2)

eta (plural etas or eta)

  1. A social outcast in Japan who is subjected to menial work, making up a class or caste of such people.

Noun (3) capitalized: ETA

ETA (plural ETAs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of estimated time of arrival.
    • We're even, as long as we're only counting today. Kilo 023, what's your ETA?2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, spoken by Avery Johnson (David Scully), Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Sierra 117
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Electronic Travel Authorization, a type of electronic visa.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Elvis tribute artist, a professional impersonator who performs as Elvis Presley.

Verb capitalized: ETA

ETA

  1. (Internet, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of edited to add.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: ETA

ETA

  1. (abbreviation, acronym, historical) Acronym of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, a Basque separatist organization active from 1959 to 2018.
    • They include northern Spain’s Catalan independence movement and political descendants of the Basque secessionist group ETA, who infuriated voters before local elections in May when they fielded 44 convicted terrorists as candidates, including seven found guilty of murder.2023 July 21, Jason Horowitz, “In Spain’s Election, Left and Right Answer for the Company They Keep”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  2. (Australia, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Electronic Travel Authority.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Eta

Eta

  1. (historical) Alternative letter-case form of ETA.
    • The Basque terrorist group Eta, which killed more than 800 people during its four-decade armed campaign, has apologised for the suffering it caused and asked for the forgiveness of victims and their families as it prepares to dissolve. […] “We wish to show our respect for those who were killed or...2018 April 20, Sam Jones, “'We are truly sorry': Eta apologises for four decades of deadly violence”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Apr 2019

Noun (4) capitalized: eTA

eTA (plural eTAs)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of ETA (“Electronic Travel Authorization”)

Also used as

eta is also the alternative form of ita.

eta meaning in Telugu, Kannada, Tagalog and Arabic

eta in Telugu

ఎటా

eta in Kannada

ಎಟಾ

eta in Tagalog

Greek letter
eta

eta in Arabic

Greek letter
إِتَا ʔitā
More languagesFewer languages
eta in Malay
eta

Forms of eta

pluraletas
pluraleta
pluralETAs
pluraleTAs

Plural of eta: etas

Origin of eta

From Ancient Greek ἦτα (êta).

From Japanese 穢多 (“full of filth”) (literal translation, now considered derogatory in Japan).

Words formed from eta

Phrases with eta

Words that rhyme with eta

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about eta

What does eta mean?
Eta means the seventh letter of the Modern Greek alphabet, the eighth in Old Greek.
What is eta in Telugu?
Eta in Telugu is ఎటా. See Eta meaning in Telugu.
What part of speech is eta?
Eta can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce eta?
Eta is pronounced /ˈiːtə/ (UK).
What is the plural of eta?
The plural of eta is etas.

Words near eta in the dictionary

  1. ET-743
  2. Et-Tell
  3. et. al
  4. ET50
  5. ET743
  6. eta
  7. Eta Carinae
  8. eta conversion
  9. eta conversions
  10. eta meson
  11. eta mesons

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eta (page history and authors); ETA (page history and authors); Eta (page history and authors); eTA (page history and authors); eta (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); eta (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-eta (ee).wav, En-us-eta.ogg.

Cite this entry: “eta.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eta. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.