waaw واو

The name of this letter is واو "WOW!".

Eighty percent of the time, if it's at the beginning of a word it sounds like "wack" or "wet", and elsewhere it sounds like the oo in "boot" or the oa in "boat". There are a dozen more ways of reading this letter (see below, "reading the wow").

An important detail:

The sound Arabic sound uw is like the LONG "oo" in "boot" or "boat", and is nearly always written with a و,

The Arabic sound u is like the SHORT "oo" in "book" or "wood", and is always left unwritten.

When the Arabic alphabet is used to write non-Arabic words, all vowels pronounced with the lips together may be spelled as w (even the short oo of book).

See also the waaw hamzah واو همزة

Writing the waaw واو

The و is a faa# فاء head plus a raa# راء tail. The first stroke of the faa# فاء head starts at the baseline, and the tail runs along two sides of a gri square.

In some calligraphic styles, the tail looks like a nuwn نون's tail, and the letter و resembles a dotless ق
yaa# ياء
Alphabet Table

writing_arabic -> alphabet -> waaw