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The term micro (µ) is a prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
 in the SI
Si

Si, si, or SI may refer to :...
 and other systems of unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
s denoting a factor of 10−6 (one million
Million

One million , or one thousand 1000 , is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The name is derived from Italian, where mille was 1,000, and 1,000,000 became milione, "a large thousand"....
th). Confirmed in 1960, the prefix comes from the Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
  (), meaning "small".

The symbol for it is the micro sign µ, the Greek letter mu
Mu (letter)

Mu is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 40. Mu was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for water which had been simplified by the Phoenicians and named after their word for water, to become Mem ....
 (µ). For historical reasons, these are two different characters in Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
, which appear slightly different in some fonts.






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The term micro (µ) is a prefix
SI prefix

An SI prefix is a name or associated symbol that precedes a basic unit of measure to form a decimal multiple . The abbreviation SI is from the French language name Syst?me International d?Unit?s ....
 in the SI
Si

Si, si, or SI may refer to :...
 and other systems of unit
Units of measurement

The definition, agreement and practical use of units of measurement have played a crucial role in human endeavour from early ages up to this day....
s denoting a factor of 10−6 (one million
Million

One million , or one thousand 1000 , is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The name is derived from Italian, where mille was 1,000, and 1,000,000 became milione, "a large thousand"....
th). Confirmed in 1960, the prefix comes from the Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
  (), meaning "small".

The symbol for it is the micro sign µ, the Greek letter mu
Mu (letter)

Mu is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 40. Mu was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for water which had been simplified by the Phoenicians and named after their word for water, to become Mem ....
 (µ). For historical reasons, these are two different characters in Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
, which appear slightly different in some fonts. The micro sign is encoded in the "Latin-1 Supplement" range identical to ISO/IEC 8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1

ISO 8859-1, more formally cited as ISO/IEC 8859-1 is part 1 of ISO 8859, a standard character encoding of the Latin alphabet. It is less formally referred to as Latin-1....
 (since 1985), at U+00B5 (Unicode 1.0, 1991). The Greek letter is encoded in the Greek range at U+03BC.

In circumstances where only the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 is available, the prefix can be represented using the letter u
U

U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled u ....
 as in "um" for µm, or "uF" for µF. In some contexts, such as pharmacy
Pharmacy

Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemistrys, and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of medication....
, microgram
Microgram

In the metric system, a microgram is 1/1,000,000 of a gram , or 1/1000 of a milligram, is one of the smallest units of weight/mass commonly used....
 is often written mcg, which is nonstandard.

See also

  • micrometre
    Micrometre

    A micrometre or micron is one Micro- of a metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron....
  • square micrometre
  • microsecond