CAPH, KAPH käph (ך). The eleventh letter of the Heb. alphabet, having sound of k. The word kaph means “palm of the hand” in Heb., and its original form was a three-fingered hand. In the 9th cent. it developed an elongated diagonal stroke, and in this form was borrowed into the Gr. alphabet as kappa, from which the k in the Rom. alphabet was derived. As a numeral kaph expressed the value of twenty (20).