# Why are there so few English words ending with "v"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374 "2016-12-10T19:56:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/21 "2016-12-11T08:50:26Z")
In many cases the final ‘e’ in words like ‘love’ is a vestige of a once-pronounced vowel. Old-English love was ‘lufu.’ ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/22 "2016-12-11T09:50:08Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Yes, but the implication of the wording here is that letters somehow have agency and intrinsically make sounds, but they don’t. I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/23 "2016-12-11T12:45:05Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I wrote a quick program to analyze the distribution of final letters in 471,042 words from /usr/share/dict/words on my Linux system. V is the third least common final letter, behind J and Q. Interesting list. Could you tell us WHICH 37 words end with v? Maybe we can find a pattern. (And just for trivia’ sake, which are the 17 that end with j and 6 for q?) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/24 "2016-12-11T14:10:30Z")
I’m dying to know a word with “qu” not followed by a vowel. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/25 "2016-12-11T14:33:46Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’m dying to know a word with “qu” not followed by a vowel. Assuming ‘…quy’ words aren’t good enough for you, you may be stuck with the plural of a Middle Eastern coin (or an alternate spelling of the singular): > [@](#): > > qirsh or **qursh** , gursh, girsh, ghirsh > [kursh] > > noun, plural **qurush** [koo-roosh] > > 1. a cupronickel coin and monetary unit of Saudi Arabia, the 20th part of a riyal. > 2. a former coin and fractional monetary unit of several Middle Eastern and North African countries. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/26 "2016-12-11T15:42:51Z")
There’s also qubit, as in quantum bit, but that might be too jargon-y. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/27 "2016-12-11T17:03:01Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Interesting list. Could you tell us WHICH 37 words end with v? Maybe we can find a pattern. (And just for trivia’ sake, which are the 17 that end with j and 6 for q?) My /usr/share/dict/words has 50 words which end in a v: > [@](#): > > Andropov > Asimov > Av > Azov > Baryshnikov > Brezhnev > Cerenkov > Chekhov > Diaghilev > Godunov > Gorbachev > Gustav > Kalashnikov > Karamazov > Kasparov > Kharkov > Khrushchev > Kiev > Kirov > Kishinev > Kislev > Kuibyshev > Kutuzov > Lvov > Markov > Mendeleev > Moiseyev > Molotov > Nabokov > Negev > Nev > Nikolayev > Nov > Nureyev > Olav > Pavlov > Prokofiev > Rev > Romanov > Rostov > Sakharov > Saratov > Slav > Turgenev > Ustinov > Yugoslav > Zhukov > Zyuganov > rev > v (Yes, it considers just v to be a word.) It has only two which end in j: > [@](#): > > Maj > j And five that end in q: > [@](#): > > Compaq > Esq > Iraq > Sq > q > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > I’m dying to know a word with “qu” not followed by a vowel. Here we see a potential pitfall of working with regular expressions. I’ll show the command and the results, and then discuss what happened: ```auto % egrep 'qu[^aeiouy]' /usr/share/dict/words Urquhart appliqué appliqué's appliquéd appliquéing appliqués manqué risqué ``` The command is the line at the top, after the % sign. The result is everything below that. What happened is that the pattern I used to mean ‘not a vowel’ actually meant ‘is any character other than a, e, i, o, u, or y’, and é qualifies. If you’re not careful with your code, you can get all kinds of interesting results. (Oh, and if I mistakenly leave the y out of the pattern, the result includes colloquy, obloquy, obsequy, soliloquy, and their possessive forms. Another little subtlety.) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/28 "2016-12-11T17:05:27Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. Because when we say > [@dtilque](#): > > . . . an F that’s not pronounced /f/. we imply that the letter determines the pronunciation, (and that in this case, the letter “makes” a different sound). But it’s not that the F is pronounced “differently”; it’s that the /v/ normally isn’t represented by F. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/29 "2016-12-11T17:07:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I don’t know the answer, but I can at least refine the question a bit. I can think of plenty of examples of words that end in a V sound: Move, have, live, love, dove, rove. But it seems like all of them are spelled with an e after the v, even when that would seem to contravene usual English rules for a final E (for instance, “live” (the verb) is pronounced “liv”, even though it looks like it should always be “live” (the adjective)). I think this helps define the problem. However they got that way there are plenty of words that end with ‘v’ sound. Spelling and pronunciation are only loosely coupled. Some of the explanation for this is in the evolution of word pronunciations and some in the evolution of spelling. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/30 "2016-12-11T17:40:29Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > My /usr/share/dict/words has 50 words which end in a v:(Yes, it considers just v to be a word.) Hm, every one on your list except rev is a proper name. I’m surprised yours doesn’t have “shiv” at least. Here are the 37 in my file. ```auto accumulativ ahartalav akov ameliorativ analav appreciativ dev div emanativ Grundlov Harv kalashnikov Kislev legislativ leitmotiv lev Liv Mev Mordv Pshav Rajeev Rajiv rev Rotanev Sanjeev Sclav shiv skiv Slav sov spiv struv tav thruv v Vladislav Yugoslav ``` I’d like to mention, in case anyone noticed that the numbers in my first post don’t add up, my list was actually taken from a 235,860 word file on a Macintosh. Looking at the larger file on Linux, it has 142 words that end in v after filtering out proper names, although clearly many of these don’t even remotely qualify as “English words”. > [@](#): > > abbrev > abv > accumulativ > admov > adv > ahartalav > akov > ameliorativ > analav > anniv > anti-Slav > appreciativ > a-v > av > behav > bonav > brev > brezhnev > bv > caseconv > cav > centrev > cerenkov > champlev > chekhov > cherenkov > chiv > chronoscopv > civ > cliv > conv > corv > cv > dBV > deriv > derv > dev > div > electromotiv > elev > emanativ > env > equiv > eV > fconv > ferv > flav > fv > galv > ganev > gconv > gov > grav > guv > gv > hav > hv > iconv > immov > improv > impv > indiv > intsv > inv > isogriv > iv > jugoslav > juv > keV > kev > khrushchev > kiev > kislev > kolmogorov > kV > kv > lav > legislativ > leitmotiv > lev > lulav > luv > lv > lvov > maglev > mangabev > maskmv > merv > mirv > moshav > mV > mv > nav > nov > nv > obv > ohv > ollav > pav > pavlov > pay-TV > perv > prev > pristav > priv > prov > pro-Yugoslav > pulv > qqv > qv > radiov > rev > riv > sav > schav > self-destadv > serv > shiv > skiv > slav > solv > sov > spiv > struv > surv > sv > tav > thruv > tov > trav > trouv > tv > univ > v > vav > vv > watfiv > xdiv > xiv > xxiv > xxv > yugoslav ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/31 "2016-12-11T18:28:05Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > There’s also qubit, as in quantum bit, but that might be too jargon-y. Nice find. On the contrary, I think this is a fine new upstanding member of the English language and its standard orthography, with impeccable birth credentials from that community. Not saying that “Haj” and “Qatar” are not members (for now) of that collection, but they are of more recent wanderers-in to our melting pot language, whose determinations of correct transliteration can change; perhaps they will stay, and join “risqué” and its brethren who since the very roots [heh] of historical English have set up camp. Rather than “jargon” in this discussion I would suggest special pleading for words with letter names. Here “qubit” to my eyes is far more elegant than “qbit” (or “Qbit” or “Q-bit”) or “Y-connector.” ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/32 "2016-12-11T19:12:04Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > Hm, every one on your list except rev is a proper name. I’m surprised yours doesn’t have “shiv” at least. Yeah, I’m surprised at that as well. _(Brief session with package manager later.)_ OK, the package called ‘wamerican-insane’ is apparently what you have on your Linux system, and what I didn’t have until quite recently, and _that_ includes such probably-spurious entries as ‘electromotiv’; it even mentions in the description that it possibly contains invalid words. It also contains ‘shiv’, of course. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/33 "2016-12-11T21:28:14Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Because when we saywe imply that the letter determines the pronunciation, (and that in this case, the letter “makes” a different sound). But it’s not that the F is pronounced “differently”; it’s that the /v/ normally isn’t represented by F. This is semantic quibbling. I knew what I meant; you knew what I meant; virtually all readers knew what I meant. Communication was achieved. Your pedantry serves no purpose. For the _Word Ways_ articles, here’s the article on Q with no U (you have to hit the “Download” button to get it): [Must You Join the Queue](http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol9/iss2/16/). I’ve seen two addition in the years since this was published: **shequel** , a variant spelling of shekel, and qubit, as noted above, for words with qu not followed by a vowel. For my article on J-ending words: [End of the Word: J](http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol25/iss4/20/). Note that my list includes capitalized words, but not personal or place names. I’ve seen a few others since that was published, but the only ones that comes to mind are **ganj** and **Zanj**. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/34 "2016-12-11T22:15:16Z")
Years ago I was analyzing English text to get ideas for data compression methods and I noticed this “-v” peculiarity. Not having a large online dictionary at the time, the only words I could think of were “shiv”, “leitmotiv” and the “\*slav” words. Good to see that I apparently didn’t miss anything of note. Yet another thing that contributes (indirectly) to the fine analysis by Shannon on the entropy of English. Looking over **markn+**'s list with proper names excluded actually has several. E.g., “kolmogorov”\* is a proper name and I don’t think it’s become genericized to any extent. Apparently though “markov” got left out and that’s probably gets more usage as a generic term. I don’t see “khrushchev” going the way of “lynch” and such. - I guess I’m just primed here to mention Information Theory people. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/35 "2016-12-11T23:55:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **markn+** : > > I wrote a quick program to analyze the distribution of final letters in 471,042 words from /usr/share/dict/words on my Linux system. V is the third least common final letter, behind J and Q. Of course, “z” is relatively uncommon anywhere in a word, and “j” isn’t too far behind, so it’s not all that surprising that they’d be low in the final-letter rankings. A more interesting measure would be a letter’s end-word frequency divided by its overall frequency. “q” is still a special case, of course, but for purposes of English orthography, it’s probably best to consider “qu” to be a single letter. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/36 "2016-12-12T00:00:37Z")
I just want to know why teachers for years told me this was an English rule. ‘I’ comes before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ weight \<…wait wat? I just think English is a bit overly complicated, certainly more than it needs to be. Then again I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in school ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/37 "2016-12-12T00:18:35Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > For the _Word Ways_ articles, here’s the article on Q with no U (you have to hit the “Download” button to get it): [Must You Join the Queue](http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol9/iss2/16/). I’ve seen two addition in the years since this was published: **shequel** , a variant spelling of shekel, I just noticed I misspelled that. It should be **sheqel**. It’s in M-W Collegiate, which means it’s a fairly common word. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/38 "2016-12-12T00:50:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Of course, “z” is relatively uncommon anywhere in a word, and “j” isn’t too far behind, so it’s not all that surprising that they’d be low in the final-letter rankings. A more interesting measure would be a letter’s end-word frequency divided by its overall frequency. Interesting thought. Ok, in this table, columns 2 and 3 are the total count and frequency of each letter anywhere in a word, columns 4 and 5 are the count and frequency of the letter when it is the final letter in a word, and the last column is column 4 (count as final letter) divided by column 2 (count anywhere in word). By this metric, final V drops to second to last, although it’s nearly tied with final Q for last. ```auto y 51681 2.29% 27747 11.76% = 53.689% d 68191 3.02% 15989 6.78% = 23.447% e 235331 10.43% 44195 18.74% = 18.780% s 139542 6.18% 26060 11.05% = 18.675% k 16158 0.72% 2646 1.12% = 16.376% g 47094 2.09% 6432 2.73% = 13.658% n 158743 7.03% 19962 8.46% = 12.575% m 70680 3.13% 8862 3.76% = 12.538% x 6932 0.31% 794 0.34% = 11.454% l 130463 5.78% 14927 6.33% = 11.442% c 103440 4.58% 11324 4.80% = 10.947% t 152831 6.77% 14823 6.28% = 9.699% r 160985 7.13% 15463 6.56% = 9.605% h 64356 2.85% 4754 2.02% = 7.387% a 199554 8.84% 12595 5.34% = 6.312% w 13864 0.61% 703 0.30% = 5.071% f 24165 1.07% 919 0.39% = 3.803% p 78163 3.46% 2199 0.93% = 2.813% z 8460 0.37% 144 0.06% = 1.702% o 170692 7.56% 2300 0.98% = 1.347% b 40433 1.79% 477 0.20% = 1.180% i 201032 8.91% 1984 0.84% = 0.987% u 87353 3.87% 524 0.22% = 0.600% j 3167 0.14% 18 0.01% = 0.568% v 20177 0.89% 38 0.02% = 0.188% q 3734 0.17% 7 0.00% = 0.187% ``` ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/39 "2016-12-12T01:03:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Of course, “z” is relatively uncommon anywhere in a word, and “j” isn’t too far behind, so it’s not all that surprising that they’d be low in the final-letter rankings. Same with “v”, the 6th least common letter in English. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2016, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374/40 "2016-12-12T01:04:42Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I’d like to mention, in case anyone noticed that the numbers in my first post don’t add up, my list was actually taken from a 235,860 word file on a Macintosh. Looking at the larger file on Linux, it has 142 words that end in v after filtering out proper names, although clearly many of these don’t even remotely qualify as “English words”. One reason for that is that that file was based on Wester’s Second Unabridged. That dictionary has a large number of reformed spellings that never caught on. Many of them are words with final silent Es with the E dropped, which results in many more entries ending in V. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-there-so-few-english-words-ending-with-v/774374.md?page=3)