What ب means
On Windows Arabic (101), press F for ب.
As of 2026, select the Windows Arabic (101) layout before pressing F. Other Arabic layouts may put the letter on a different key.
What does ب mean?
It writes the b sound; its role depends on the word.
A kasra is the short vowel mark written below a letter. With it, بِـ is read bi and attaches to the following noun as a one-letter preposition meaning “with,” “by,” or “at,” depending on the sentence.
In Egyptian Arabic, a b-prefix before a present-tense verb marks habitual action. Arabic writing developed from Nabataean, a form of the Aramaic script. The Namarah inscription of AD 328 is an early landmark in that history, not the date of today’s dotted ب. Arabic script later carried documents, Qur’an manuscripts (the Qur’an is Islam’s holy book) and coins.
Why does ب change shape?
Its outline changes as it joins neighboring letters.
Arabic text software shows the right form for the letter’s position: alone, at the start, in the middle or at the end of a word. All are the same character.
The single dot below is what separates ب from ت, with two dots above, and ث, with three.
ب is neutral as a letter; the surrounding word or phrase carries the tone.
The preposition bi attaches to a word; bare ب represents the b consonant.
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsDon't confuse it with
2Combination ideas
1Questions people ask
1Why does ب show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
How to type ب
ب\0628Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.