TZE-HSI, TZU-HI. or TZI-HI, a cel ebrated empress of China, born in Pe king, in 1835. She was known as the Great Empress Dowager, and ruled China for half a century. The name of her family was Hweicheng, belonging to the Nara or Nala clan, from which she derived the name of Yehonala. When sixteen she entered the harem of the Em peror Hien-Fung, and started as a kwei jen or concubine of the fifth rank. Her talents and striking beauty brought her to the fourth rank in 1854; in 1856 she rose to the third rank, and in 1858 she was second only to Tze-an, who acted as imperial consort on the death of the emperor's legal wife. On April 29, 185G, she gave birth to a son, afterward the Emperor Tung-chih, and later she was known as the Empress of the Western Palace. On the death of Hien-Fung she frustrated a plot intended to bring about her removal and with Tze-an, Empress of the Eastern Palace, attained to power. When her son became emperor (1861. 1875) her power increased, and it was maintained when Kwang-su, his succes sor, married her favorite niece, Yehonala, Her political advisers were first Li Hung Chang, and later Yuan Shikai. Her most difficult period was following the Chino Japanese war (1894-95), when one foreign power succeeded another in forcing concessions. Her policy was al ways in favor of absolute power, but she was compelled to yield before she died to liberalizing and modernizing meas ures. She died November 15, 1908. a day after Kwang-su, designating Pu.yi, son of her nephew, as successor.
U, u, the 21st letter and the 5th vowel of the English alphabet. It is one of the three primitive vowels, from which the various vowel sounds in the Aryan lan guages have been developed. Its true primary sound was that which it still re tains in most of the European languages, viz., that of oo in cool, tool, wood, etc., corresponding to the French ou, as in cow, tour, etc., the sound being some times short and sometimes long. The Anglo-Saxon ii (marked with an accent) has commonly become in modern English the dipthong ou or ow, as Anglo-Saxon thit= thou, nit= now, mitth=mouth, etc. After r, and after the sounds sh and zh, u has generally retained its old long sound, as in rule, truth, etc. In Anglo Saxon rtim=room, bracan=brook (v.) the original long sound is retained, though the form is altered. The old short sound of u is still retained in bull, full, pull, put, etc., but as a rule this sound became changed (probably about the middle of the 17th century) to the sound heard in cut, tun, fun, etc. (marked a sound then new to Eng lish, not being mentioned by any writer before 1653. This sound, which is very similar to that of the unaccented French e, is characteristic of English, and is of ten given to the vowels a, e, when un accented, as in cavalry, camel, etc. It is also given to the vowel o, even when ac cented, as in money, come, honey, among, etc. A modified form of it often occurs before r, as in bur, cur, fur, etc., and sometimes rr, as in knurr, purr, etc. (1narked u). This sound is sometimes given to a, i, o, and y before r, as in auricular, her, fir, work, martyr. In the
16th or 17th century arose the practice of using gu to represent a hard g before an e, as in guess, a French practice, bor rowed from qu; and to this, and the wish to indicate a long vowel by a final e, must be attributed plague, vague, fa tigue, rogue, etc. The final -g-ue does not, however, always indicate a preced ing long vowel; cf. epilogue, synagogue, tongue, etc. The use of u for w in per suade, etc., is modern, also imitated from its use in qu. The long sound of u, as in mute, duke, confuse, etc. (marked and modified by r, as in cure, pure (marked is not a simple vowel, an i sound being more or less distinctly in troduced before it, or fused with it. The corresponding short sound is heard in unit, unity, etc. In some dialects in the United States, this sound is also some times given to us after r. Duke is some times vulgarly pronounced with the same sound, as dook. The original sound of short u is now only retained in bury, burial, busy and business. The long sound of u, as in mute, is also repre sented by other combinations, as by -ue, in due, sue, etc.; by ew, in dew, flew, etc.; and by ui in suit. Ue is used in later spelling as a final u, owing to a rule made by no one knows whom, no one knows why, and no one knows when, that no English word can end in u. In the 13th and 14th centuries ue =French eu. Ui has several sounds: (1) 11, as in suit, fruit, etc.; (2) = I, as in build, guild; (3) i, as in guide; (4) 1, as in mosquito; (5) wi, as in anguish, lan guid. In buoy, buy, buyer, buying, etc., the u is silent, as also in plaguy. In the best period of Roman literature the u sound was expressed by the character v, a character which did not exist in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet, its sound, when it occurred between two vowels, being rep resented by i or occasionally by u. In later times u and v stood indifferently for either sound, the capital being gen erally written V. In this respect U and V stand to each other as I and J. In almost all English dictionaries, up to a comparatively recent date, words begin ning with U and V were combined. In printing, where the sheets are marked by the letters A, B, c, etc. (standing for 1, 2, 3, etc.), the signs .T,' v, and w are ig nored, so that, for this purpose, the let ters of the alphabet are only 23. In re spect to its order in the alphabet, its form, and its history in general, U cor responds with the Greek upsilon. Greek words containing the diphthong ou, when Latinized, were spelled with a u; while Greek words with u, when Latinized, trere spelled with y.
U as an initial is used for United, as in U. S. United States; U. S. A. United States of America, and United States Army; U. S. N. United States Navy; U. K.=the United Kingdom; U. P. United Presbyterian (Scotch) ; U. C. or A. U. C. in dates belonging to Roman history is a contraction for Ab urbe condita=from the building of the city (of Rome), as U. C. 400=in the year of Rome 400.
U as a symbol is used, in chemistry, for uranium.