Colless), the letter possibly continues a Middle Bronze Age glyph named 'good', Aramaic 'tav', Hebrew 'tov', Syriac ??? 'tava', modern Arabic ??? tayyib', all of identical meaning.

Jewish religious books about the "holy letters" from the 10th century onward discuss the connection or origin of the letter Teth with the word tov "good". This is alluded to in a cryptic aggadata in the Talmud Baba Kamma 54b. Additionally the first time the letter "tes" appears in the