Thorn

Thorn is the name of the Old English letter þ (upper case Þ). It was used in the past to signify one of the two sounds we now spell as '-th-': the other is the edh. Þ (lower case þ) represents the voiceless sound of 'think', 'thank', 'path' and 'thorn']]: eth represents the voiced sound of 'that, 'this' and 'mother'. Thorn is now sometimes mis-represented by the letter 'y' by those who do not know any better. See ye (olde tea shoppe).

Do not confuse thorn (Þ and þ) with wynn (Ƿ and ƿ). They look very similar, and it can be hard to distinguish one scribe's rendering of the two - even harder to distinguish between the two letters as formed by different scribes.

Printing saw to the end of the letter þ, as to that of eth and yogh: as the earliest fonts were all bought on the continent of Europe, where there are no such letters, Caxton, among others, had to develop other ways of expressing them. He settled on -th- for both thorn and eth. The Romans had used '-th-' to transliterate the Greek letter theta (Θ), which had the sound of thorn - the voiceless dental; Caxton, like earlier French scribes. used the '-th-' pair for both the voiced and voiceless dental fricative.

See also obsolete letters.