DIGAMMA

obsolete Gk. letter, called ‘vau,’ shaped like an English F and pronounced as »v-w; disappeared from alphabet c. 550 B.C., in some places as early as VII. cent. B.C.; was used in Homeric poems. Eng. conspirator; became a Roman Catholic c. 1599; joined in Gunpowder Plot, and was executed. Eng. soldier and author; s. of Sir Everard D., privateer; imprisoned for Royalist intrigues, 1642; helped to found Royal Society.