WYTTENBACH, DANIEL (vit'ten bah), a Dutch scholar; born in Bern, Aug. 7, 1746; studied at Marburg, Got tingen, and Leyden; became Professor of Greek at the Remonstrant Gym nasium at Amsterdam in 1771, of Phi losophy at the Athenxum in 1779, and succeeded in 1799 to Ruhnken's chair of rhetoric at the university. His greatest work is the edition of Plutarch's "Mor als," with rich annotations and an ad mirable "Greek Index to Plutarch's Works" (Oxf. 8 vols. 1795-1380). He retired in 1816, and died after some years of blindness in Osgeest, Jan. 17, 1820. His wife, Johanna Gallien, a niece of Hanau, whom he married at 72, was a remarkably accomplished woman. She lived after her husband's death at Paris.
X, x, the 24th letter of the English alphabet. It is superfluous, as it repre sents no sound which cannot be ex pressed by other letters. Thus, when used at the beginning of a word it has precisely the sound of z; when occurring in the middle of a word it usually has the sound of ks, as in axis, taxes, forces, etc.; it also has the same sound in some
cases when terminating a word, as lax, wax, etc.; when it terminates a syllable, and more especially an initial syllable, if the syllable following it is open or ac cented, it frequently has the sound of gz, as in luxury, exhaust, exalt, exotic, etc. As an initial it occurs only in words of Greek origin, or formed from Greek words, most of these formations being of a scientific or technical nature.
X as a symbol is used in numeration: For 10, in this case being composed of two Vs (5) placed one above the other, the lower one being inverted. When placed horizontally it stands for 1,000 and with a dash over it, it represents 10,000.
In ordinary writing X is frequently used as an abbreviation for Christ. In this case the symbol is not the same letter as the English X, but represents the Greek X (Ch), as in Xn------Christian, Xmas=Christmas.