O (letter)
is the th letter of the English alphabet. Its name is pronounced
Use in English
Examples (the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English phonemes):
òw and ôw:
òw stressed in monosyllables: hòw, nòw, bròwn, còw, fròwn, bòw down, vòw, wòw, AmE plòw (BrE plòugh) and in: còward, còwardly, glòwer, flòwer, pòwer, Gòwer, shòwer, nòwadays.
ôw stressed in monosyllables: lôw, sôw seed (= sew needle) môw, tôw pull (= tôe foot) and unstressed at the end of words of two syllables: yéllôw, shállôw, hóllôw, gállôws, nárrôw, bórrôw, árrôw, fúrrôw, fállôw.
oê, from Greek oi, is quite rare. It can be written as a single letter, œ, but this is rather unusual nowadays, e alone often being used instead, especially in America. But you might see Phœbe, fœtus, œnology, Œdipus, phœnix bird (= Phoênix Arizona), œstrogen instead of Phoêbe, foêtus, oênology, Oêdipus, phoênix, oêstrogen. And, from French, there is œuvre (*ërvrə).
gôes (cf. dòes do, dôes animals) and the plurals, tôes, potâtoes, AmE tomâtoes, BrE tomàtoes, peccadíllôes are of course not Greek oi and just have the ô sound. But not all plurals have the e: volcânos, tornâdos, hâlos, concërtos (consh-). The longer the word has been in the English language, the more likely it is to have -ôes; there is alas no other rule.
pêople has the same vowel sound as œ, but with the letters reversed, and the o completely redundant, as it is also in léopard and jéopardy (cf. jéalousy).