The origin of 'F' is the Semitic letter vv (or waw) that represented a sound like

/v/ or /w/. Graphically it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club

. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph such as that which
represented the word mace (transliterated as ?(dj)):T3
The Phoenician form of the letter was adopted into Greek as a vowel, upsilon (wh
ich resembled its descendant, 'Y' but was also ancestor of Roman letters 'U', 'V
', and 'W'); and with another form, as a consonant, digamma, which resembled 'F'
, but indicated the pronunciation /w/, as in Phoenician. (After /w/ disappeared
from Greek, digamma was used as a numeral only.)
In Etruscan, 'F' probably represented /w/, as in Greek; and the Etruscans formed
the digraph 'FH' to represent /f/. When the Romans adopted the alphabet, they u
sed 'V' (from Greek upsilon) to stand for /w/ as well as /u/, leaving 'F' availa
ble for /f/. (At that time, the Greek letter phi 'F' represented an aspirated vo
iceless bilabial plosive /p?/, though in Modern Greek it approximates the sound
of /f/.) And so out of the various vav variants in the Mediterranean world, the
letter F entered the Roman alphabet attached to a sound which its antecedents in
Greek and Etruscan did not have. The Roman alphabet forms the basis of the alph
abet used today for English and many other languages.
The lowercase ' f ' is not related to the visually similar long s, ' ? ' (or med
ial s). The use of the long s largely died out by the beginning of the 19th cent
ury, mostly to prevent confusion with ' f ' when using a short mid-bar (see more
at: S).
Usage
In the English writing system 'f' is used to represent the sound /f/. It is comm
only doubled at the end of words. Exceptionally, it represents the voiced sound
/v/ in the common word "of". In the orthographies of other languages, 'f' common
ly represents /f/, [?] or /v/.
In French orthography, 'f' is used to represent /f/. It may also be silent at th
e end of words.
In Spanish orthography, 'f' is used to represent /f/.
In the Hepburn romanization of Japanese, 'f' is used to represent [?], which is
usually considered to be an allophone of /h/ before /u/.
In Slavic languages, 'f' is used primarily in words of foreign (Greek, Latin, or
Germanic) origin.
In phonetic and phonemic transcription, the International Phonetic Alphabet uses
'f' to represent the voiceless labiodental fricative.
In school grading "F" stands for fail.
Related letters and other similar characters
? ?
Y y
V v
U u
W w
??:

: Latin letter F with hook

: Greek letter digamma/wau, from which F is directly descended
: Latin letter Y, sharing its roots with F
: Latin letter V, also sharing its roots with F
: Latin letter U, which is descended from V
: Latin letter W, also descended from V
Phoenician letter waw, the original glyph