Greek Alphabet Unicode

Greek alphabet Unicode: code points and names

The table shows each letter’s code point, its HTML entity and its LaTeX command. Capital letters run from U+0391 to U+03A9 and lowercase from U+03B1 to U+03C9; the same offset applies to both. In Unicode names, lambda is spelled LAMDA (“GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA”), which follows the Greek spelling λάμδα. Everywhere else, including this site, the usual English spelling is lambda.

The variant forms have their own code points and entities:

All named entities above were checked against the HTML Standard’s entity list (the HTML5 table in Python’s html.entities). For plain letters the entity is the English name, for example Α and α. Note that ε is the ordinary ε (U+03B5) and ϵ the lunate form. In HTML5, Ω also exists and resolves to Greek capital omega (U+03A9), not the ohm sign.

How do I use Greek characters in code?

For text in a LaTeX document outside math mode, the textgreek package provides commands like \textalpha; upright (non-italic) Greek in math needs a package such as upgreek. We list these by name only; check the package manual for options.

What should I know about LaTeX Greek letters?

The short version is below; the full command table, upright and bold Greek and text-mode commands are on LaTeX Greek letters.

• No command for omicron. Type a plain o. Capital letters that look like Latin letters have no command either (see the table’s last column).
• Variants. \varepsilon (ε), \vartheta (ϑ), \varpi (ϖ), \varrho (ϱ), \varsigma (ς) and \varphi (φ) give the variant shapes. HTML names run the other way: ϕ and ϵ are ϕ (U+03D5) and ϵ (U+03F5). \varkappa needs the amssymb package.
• The epsilon trap. In standard LaTeX math, \epsilon draws the lunate ϵ and \varepsilon the curly ε, which is the opposite of what the Unicode code points would suggest. Look at the output.
• Bold Greek. \boldsymbol (amsmath) or \bm (bm package) makes bold Greek; \mathbf leaves lowercase Greek letters unchanged.

Which characters look like Greek letters?

Which symbols have a Greek twin?

The first five are symbols that have a Greek twin. Use the letters for text and the symbols only when the symbol itself is the meaning, as in a formula.

Which Greek capitals are homoglyphs?

The last two rows of the table show homoglyphs, characters from different alphabets with the same shape. Fourteen Greek capitals have a Latin or Cyrillic twin (Α Β Ε Ζ Η Ι Κ Μ Ν Ο Ρ Τ Υ Χ). Mixing alphabets inside a word is a known technique for spoofing names, which is why some systems restrict or flag mixed-script usernames.

What are the mathematical alphanumeric Greek letters?

The Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block (starting at U+1D400) contains Greek sets for formulas. Bold capital alpha is U+1D6A8 (𝚨), and the bold small alpha 𝛂 is U+1D6C2. The italic set starts at U+1D6E2 (capital) and U+1D6FC (small), the bold italic set at U+1D71C and U+1D736, and sans-serif bold at U+1D756 and U+1D770. They also include nabla (𝛁, U+1D6C1) and partial differential (𝛛, U+1D6DB) forms. They are meant for maths typesetting, not for writing Greek text, and they take two code units in UTF-16. The unstyle text tool can turn many styled letters back to plain ones.

Which symbols borrow Greek shapes?

Most of the lookalike pairs above live among the maths and science symbols. The operators ∑ ∏ ∆ and the signs for ohm, micro and angstrom, together with copy buttons, are on math symbols and science symbols. Five letters have their own page with every form, code and lookalike: sigma, delta, pi, omega and mu. The numeral signs stigma, koppa and sampi and the keraia marks are on Greek numerals.

Sources

The facts about Greek alphabet Unicode on this page come from the sources below and from checks with Python’s standard library.

• Unicode Greek and Coptic code chart (PDF)
• Unicode Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols chart (PDF)
• HTML Standard, Named character references
• Character names and normalization results were verified with Python 3 unicodedata and html.entities.
• LaTeX command behaviour (\epsilon versus \varepsilon, no \omicron) is standard in the LaTeX base and amssymb documentation; the textgreek and upgreek packages are referenced by name only.