Free One-Letter Words, a Dictionary by Craig Conley Page A

the dominant “I”? In looking for the “I” of the “I’s” won’t we find, by dreaming like Novalis, the “I” of the “I,” the transcendental “I”? —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos
     
    15. n. A Roman numeral for one. (See J. )
     
    16. n. something arbitrarily designated I (e.g., a person, place, or other thing).
     
    17. pronoun. Nominative singular pronoun. Our practice of capitalizing the first person singular pronoun—I—is also bizarrely tied in with the badly understood conventions of when to write Roman I with a tail and when to leave well enough alone. —Alexander Humez, A B C Et Cetera
     
    18. pronoun. Narrator of a literary work written in the first person singular.
I started performing on the world stage with a borrowed silver spoon in my mouth. —Michael York, Accidentally on Purpose
     
     
    MISCELLANEOUS
    19. n. The ninth letter of the alphabet.
Colossal edifice denoted by one-letter word: /Remove “I” from pain and become Pan. —K.P. Kaligari, “Moina, My Reflection”
     
    20. n. Something having the shape of an I.
     
    21. n. I beam: a steel joist or girder whose cross-section is I-shaped.
Imagine that you and I are standing in a room at opposite ends of a 120-foot steel I-beam, the type that’s used in construction. I pull a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and shout—120 feet is a long way—“Hey, you down at the end! If you’ll walk the length of this I-beam in two minutes without stepping off the other side, I’ll give you a hundred dollars!” Would you come? It’s your own choice, of course, but I’ll bet you’re already on that beam. —Hyrum W. Smith, Priorities Magazine
     
    22. n. Any spoken sound represented by the letter. The sound vibration of the vowel I means “awareness.” —Joseph E. Rael, Tracks of Dancing Light: A Native American Approach to Understanding Your Name
     
    23. n. A grade in school indicating a student’s work is incomplete.
Although we tried a variety of strategies to promote greater success…many students still had grades of D or F or took an incomplete (I) in at least one of their classes —Ruth Schoenbach, Reading for Understanding
     
    24. n. The ninth in a series.
     
    25. n. The ninth section in a piece of music.
     
    26. n. I bar: a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped.
     
    27. n. I girder: a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped, used as a structural support in buildings or bridges.
An investigation uncovered improper reinforcement in the flanges of precast concrete I-girders that supported the double-tee roof deck. —Jacob Feld, Construction Failure
     
    28. n. I hat: a cap with a floppy brim.
     
    29. n. I iron: a steel beam whose cross-section is I-shaped.
     
    30. n. I ring: a metal band encircling a metal drum.
     
    31. n. I formation: “an offensive football play in which the quarterback, a half back, the full back, and the tail back line up behind the center.”—Dr. John Burkardt
     
     
    SCIENTIFIC MATTERS
    32. n. Electrical current.
Before WW2 acceptable symbols for current had been C for obvious reasons, and sometimes A for amperage. After the war the Electrotechnical Commission was set up to standardise the symbols used in Electronics…. They decided that current would be called I. The reason is that in French current is known as “intensité de courant.” —Phil Picton
     
    33. n. (mathematics) Imaginary number (equal to the square root of -1).
i for the imaginary unit was first used by Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) in a memoir presented in 1777 but not published until 1794 in his “Institutionum calculi integralis.” —Jeff Miller, “Earliest Uses of Various Mathematical Symbols”
     
    34. n. (astronomy) The inclination of an orbit to the ecliptic.
     
    35. n. (chemistry) The symbol for the element iodine in the periodic table.
     
    36. n. (logic) The notation of a particular affirmative statement, such as “some humans are men.” In