ou

Ou is a term with multiple meanings across languages and geographies. It appears in language as a common word, as well as a romanized form used in place names and surnames.

In French and Portuguese, ou means or. In French, the accentless form ou contrasts with où, which means where. In Portuguese, ou is the standard conjunction for or.

In East Asian naming, Ou is a surname romanized from Chinese characters such as 欧/歐. It can occur as a standalone surname and appears in compound names such as Ou-Yang.

Nam Ou River: The Nam Ou is a major river in northern Laos, a tributary of the Mekong. It flows through Oudomxay and Luang Prabang provinces and is associated with hydroelectric development and riverine landscapes.

Other uses: The syllable Ou appears in various place names and personal names in different languages whenever non-Latin scripts are transliterated into Latin characters.

Notes: The term should be distinguished from où in French, which means where, and from other proper nouns that merely contain the same syllable in longer forms.