Ż, ż is a letter in the Polish, Kashubian and Maltese alphabets.

Ż represents the voiced retroflex fricative [ʐ], similar to the pronunciation of ⟨g⟩ in "mirage". It usually corresponds to Ж or Ž in most other Slavic languages.

Its pronunciation is the same as the rz (digraph), the only difference being that ⟨rz⟩ evolved from a palatalized ⟨r⟩.

Ż occasionally devoices to the voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ], particularly in final position.

Ż should not be confused with ⟨Ź⟩ (or ⟨z⟩ followed by ⟨i⟩), termed "soft zh", the voiced alveolopalatal fricative ([ʑ]).

 żółty (help·info) (yellow)
 żona (help·info) (wife)

Compare ź:
 źle (help·info) (wrongly, badly)
 źrebię (help·info) (foal)

Occasionally, capital Ƶ (Z with horizontal stroke) is used instead of capital Ż for aesthetic purposes, especially in all-caps text and handwriting. It is common to see capital Ƶ with dot above, used to easily distinguish it from capital Z or Ź (Z with acute accent).

Kashubian ż is a voiced fricative like in Polish, but it is postalveolar ([ʒ]) rather than retroflex.