3

Glyph origin
A West Arabic numeral, ultimately from Indic numerals (compare Devanagari ), from a cursive form of three lines to represent the number three. See for more.

Symbol

 * 1) The cardinal number three.
 * 2) A digit in the decimal system of numbering, as well as octal, and hexadecimal.
 * 3)  The cube of a number or a unit.
 * m3 stands for cubic meter.
 * 1)  the pitch of a tone, perhaps most commonly mid-pitch, but it may instead be high or low depending on local convention (e.g. the highest or lowest pitch if only the numbers 1–3 are used)
 * , depending on other values
 * 1)  tone number 3, typically identified with dark rising yin shang . May be identified with departing qu tone  if the yin–yang distinction is not made.

Alternative forms
The following are equivalent forms as digits:

The following are only equivalent as representations of the cardinal number:

Noun

 * 1)   360&deg; spin

Classifier

 * 1) vehicle

Usage notes
This is usually used in two situations:
 * When an affix or clitic varies between using the diphthongs, and , which occurs due to the fact that  is not used in Mongolian (with  being used where it would otherwise occur).
 * When an affix or clitic varies between using the iotated vowels, and , as  is used in both ө-harmonic and э-harmonic terms.