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High class consonant · letter 3 of 44 · obsolete

ฃ kho khuat

ฃ (kho khuat) is a high-class consonant named after ขวด, “bottle”. It is obsolete: modern spelling uses another letter in its place.

See it in 61 fontsAll 44 consonants
ฃฃ ขวดkho khuat · bottle
Thai name
ฃ ขวด · kho khuat
Name word
ขวด, bottle
Class
High class
At the start of a syllable
/kʰ/ · RTGS kh
At the end of a syllable
not used
Unicode
U+0E03 · THAI CHARACTER KHO KHUAT
In HTML
ฃ or ฃ
Kedmanee key
Shift + \ (on Windows: \)
Pattachote key
none

How it sounds

Obsolete. ฃ had the same sound and class as ข, and modern spelling uses ข in every word, its own name word included; the example words on this page are written with ข. It is still taught as the third letter and keeps its key on Thai keyboards.

The first Thai typewriter, built in the 1890s, had no room for ฃ and ฅ, which helped push both letters out of use.

4 other letters have the same sound at the start of a syllable: ข kho khai (high), ค kho khwai (low), ฅ kho khon (low), ฆ kho rakhang (low).

Easy to mistake for ข kho khai and ช cho chang: compare them at a large size in the grid below.

Class and tone

With no mark, a high-class letter gives a rising tone in a live syllable and a low tone in a dead one. Mai ek gives low and mai tho falling; the other two marks are not used.

How ฃ would behave, as a high-class letter
SpellingSyllableTone
No mark, live syllable (long vowel)ฃาRising
No mark, dead syllable, short vowelฃะLow
No mark, dead syllable, long vowelฃากLow
Mai ekฃ่าLow
Mai thoฃ้าFalling
Mai tri–not used with this class
Mai chattawa–not used with this class

The syllables show the rule, not words to learn. The tone rules explain live and dead syllables.

Words with the sound of ฃ

No word in modern spelling uses ฃ. These are written with ข, the letter that replaced it.

ThaiRTGSMeaning
ขวดkhuatbottle (its own name word, spelled with ข today)
ไข่khaiegg
ขายkhaito sell
ขาkhaleg

RTGS shows neither tone nor vowel length; type a word into the font tester to see it in every font.

ฃ in every font

The letter in each of the 61 families you can download here, in its regular style. Looped faces start the stroke from a small circle; loopless ones leave it out. Each card opens the family’s page.