の, in hiragana, or ノ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, each of which represents one mora. In the gojūon system of ordering of Japanese syllables, it occupies the 25th position, between ね (ne) and は (ha). It occupies the 26th position in the iroha ordering. Both represent [no].
To write の, begin slightly above the center, stroke downward diagonally, then upward, and then curve around as indicated by the arrows, or rotate a "9".
To write ノ, simply do a swooping curve from top-right to bottom left.
In Japanese Braille, の, or ノ, or is represented as
The Morse code for の, or ノ, is ・・--.
See also hentaigana and gyaru-moji for other variant kana forms of no.
Like every other hiragana, the hiragana の developed from man'yōgana, kanji used for phonetic purposes, written in the highly cursive, flowing grass script style. In the picture on the left, the top shows the kanji 乃 written in the kaisho style, and the centre image is the same kanji written in the sōsho style. The bottom part is the kana for "no", a further abbreviation.