Eth

Eth (sometimes written edh, for good phonetic reasons) is the name of the Old English letter ð (upper case Ð). It is pronounced with the 'e-' of 'get', and the 'soft' or voiced '-th-' of 'other', IPA: /ɛð/. It was used in the past to signify one of the two sounds we now spell as '-th-': the other is the thorn, þ (upper case Þ). Thorn represents the voiceless sound of 'think', 'thank' and 'thorn']]: eth represents the voiced sound of 'that, 'this' and 'mother'.

Printing led to the end of the letter ð, as to that of thorn and yogh: as the earliest fonts were all bought on the continent of Europe, where there are no such letters, Caxton, among others, had to develop other ways of expressing them. He settled on -th- for both thorn and eth. The Romans had used '-th-' to transliterate the Greek letter theta (θ), which had the sound of thorn - the voiceless dental fricative.

See also obsolete letters.