not any particular or certain one of a class or group.
a man; a chemical; a house.
a certain; a particular.
one at a time; two of a kind; A Miss Johnson called.
another; one typically resembling.
a Cicero in eloquence; a Jonah.
one (used before plural nouns that are preceded by a quantifier singular in form): a hundred men (comparehundreds of men ); a dozen times (comparedozens of times ).
indefinitely or nonspecifically (used with adjectives expressing number).
a great many years; a few stars.
one (used before a noun expressing quantity).
a yard of ribbon; a score of times.
any; a single.
not a one.
the first letter of the English alphabet, a vowel.
any spoken sound represented by the letter A or a, as in bake, hat, father, or small.
something having the shape of an A .
a written or printed representation of the letter A or a.
a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter A or a.
not know from A to B, to know nothing; be ignorant.
from A to Z, from beginning to end; thoroughly; completely.
He knows the Bible from A to Z.
the first in order or in a series.
Sometimes a
(in some grading systems) a grade or mark, as in school or college, indicating the quality of a student's work as excellent or superior.
(in some school systems) a symbol designating the first semester of a school year.
Music.
the sixth tone in the scale of C major or the first tone in the relative minor scale, A minor.
a string, key, or pipe tuned to this tone.
a written or printed note representing this tone.
(in the fixed system of solmization) the sixth tone of the scale of C major, called la.
the tonality having A as the tonic note.
Physiology. a major blood group, usually enabling a person whose blood is of this type to donate blood to persons of group A or AB and to receive blood from persons of O or A.
Sometimes a the medieval Roman numeral for 50 or 500.
Chemistry. (formerly) argon.
Chemistry, Physics. mass number.
Biochemistry.
Logic. Also a universal affirmative.
British. a designation for a motion picture recommended as suitable for adults.
a proportional shoe width size, narrower than B and wider than AA.
a proportional brassiere cup size, smaller than B and larger than AA.
a quality rating for a corporate or municipal bond, lower than AA and higher than BBB.
about.
acre; acres.
active.
adjective.
alto.
ampere; amperes.
anonymous.
answer.
are; ares.
Baseball. assist; assists.
Absolute.
Academy.
acre; acres.
America.
American.
angstrom.
answer.
April.
Artillery.
music
a note having a frequency of 440 hertz ( A above middle C ) or this value multiplied or divided by any power of 2; the sixth note of the scale of C major
a key, string, or pipe producing this note
the major or minor key having this note as its tonic
a human blood type of the ABO group, containing the A antigen
(in Britain) a major arterial road
the A3 runs from London to Portsmouth
a film certified for viewing by anyone, but which contains material that some parents may not wish their children to see
( as modifier )
an A film
mass number
the number 10 in hexadecimal notation
cards ace
chem argon (now superseded by Ar )
ampere(s)
Also: at. ampere-turn
absolute (temperature)
(in circuit diagrams) ammeter
area
(in combination) atomic
an A-bomb
an A-plant
chem affinity
biochem adenine
logic a universal affirmative categorical proposition, such as all men are mortal: often symbolized as SaP Compare E I 2 O 1
a person whose job is in top management, or who holds a senior administrative or professional position
( as modifier ) See also occupation groupings
an A worker
used preceding a singular countable noun, if the noun is not previously specified or known
a dog
a terrible disappointment
used preceding a proper noun to indicate that a person or thing has some of the qualities of the one named
a Romeo
a Shylock
used preceding a noun or determiner of quantity
a cupful
a dozen eggs
a great many
to read a lot
used preceding a noun indicating a concrete or abstract thing capable of being divided
half a loaf
a quarter of a minute
each or every; per
once a day
fifty pence a pound
a certain; one
to change policy at a stroke
a Mr Jones called
(preceded by not) any at all
not a hope
acceleration
are(s) (metric measure of land)
atto-
chess See algebraic notation
the first letter and first vowel of the modern English alphabet
any of several speech sounds represented by this letter, in English as in take, bag, calm, shortage, or cobra
Also called: alpha. the first in a series, esp the highest grade or mark, as in an examination
from start to finish, thoroughly and in detail
acre(s) or acreage
America(n)
answer
on; in; towards
afoot
abed
aground
aback
literary (used before a present participle) in the act or process of
come a-running
go a-hunting
in the condition or state of
afloat
alive
asleep
In both spoken and written English the choice of a1 or an 1 is determined by the initial sound of the word that follows. Before a consonant sound, a is used; before a vowel sound, an : a book, a rose; an apple, an opera. Problems arise occasionally when the following word begins with a vowel letter but actually starts with a consonant sound, or vice versa. Some words beginning with the vowel letter u and all words beginning with the vowel letters eu are pronounced with a beginning consonant sound, as if the first letter were y : a union; a European. Some other spellings that begin with a vowel letter may also stand for an initial consonant sound: a ewe; a ewer. The words one and once and all compounds of which they are the first element begin with a w sound: a one-room apartment; a once-famous actor. The names of the consonant letters f, h, l, m, n, r, s, and x are pronounced with a beginning vowel sound. When these letters are used as words or to form words, they are preceded by an : to rent an L-shaped studio; to fly an SST. The names of the vowel letter u and the semivowel letters w and y are pronounced with a beginning consonant sound. When used as words, they are preceded by a : a U-turn; The plumber installed a Y in the line. In some words beginning with the letter h, the h is not pronounced; the words actually begin with a vowel sound: an hour; an honor. When the h is strongly pronounced, as in a stressed syllable at the beginning of a word, it is preceded by a : a history of the Sioux; a hero sandwich. (In former times an was used before strongly pronounced h in a stressed first syllable: an hundred. ) Such adjectives as historic, historical, heroic, and habitual, which begin with an unstressed syllable and often with a silent or weakly pronounced h, are commonly preceded by an, especially in British English. But the use of a rather than an is widespread in both speech and writing: a historical novel; a habitual criminal. Hotel and unique are occasionally preceded by an, but this use is increasingly old-fashioned. Although in some dialects an has yielded to a in all cases, edited writing reflects usage as described above.
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English; originally preconsonantal phonetic variant of an 1
Originally Middle English a, preconsonantal variant of on ( a- 1 ); confused with a 1
Middle English; unstressed preconsonantal variant of of 1
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English; a phonetic variant of have
First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English a, ha
Middle English, late Old English; cf. a 2, nowadays
Middle English; see a 3
Middle English; Old English a- (unstressed), ǣ-, ā-, ō- (stressed; see abb, woof 1, oakum), rarely or- ( see ordeal), ultimately from unattested Germanic uz- from unstressed Indo-European uss-, from ud-s (these latter two also unattested), akin to out; in some cases confused with a- 4, as in abridge
Middle English < Latin ā-, a- (variant of ab- ab- ); in some words < French a- < Latin ab-, as in abridge
Middle English, in some words < Middle French a- < Latin ad- prefix or ad preposition ( ad- ), as in abut; in others < Latin a- (variant of ad- ad- ), as in ascend
From Latin feminine ending -a, as Claudia, feminine of Claudius; see -a 2
Probably generalized from the -a of magnesia
< Latin annō, ablative of annus
From the Latin word ante
< Latin annō, ablative of annus
From the Latin word ante
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
XS.com’s Antonio Di Giacomo expects gold prices to increase gradually from a technical perspective, as long as it maintains above $4,000 a troy ounce, with $4,100 as the immediate resistance level.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Gregory Baszucki’s holds at least $68 million—and possibly a whole lot more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
“A Kuwaiti oil tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz northeast of Oman by an unknown projectile,” ANZ Research analysts say in a research report.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
The new signatories account for about 80% of all power delivered to U.S. homes and businesses, according to a White House official.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Somewhere in a village nestled in the lush land of Lucban—a town in the Philippine Islands—a little girl is playing make-believe.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
A study in March found that the tourist dropoff has cost between 14,000 and 42,000 jobs in the U.S. markets most exposed to Canadian tourism.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
A city hearing in May regarding alcohol sales at the site provided a rare opportunity for public comment on the property.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
A clause in his three-year contract, only signed the summer prior, allowed him to walk away for nothing.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
A 2002 law broadly prohibits U.S. cooperation with the ICC.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
A tour included a mountain climb to the famous Matterhorn....
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
In the new study, the research team employed state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy techniques to capture nine different states associated with the lipid transport and determine structures at 2.4 to 3.1 Å resolution for these states.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 5, 2023
Danish, an often staccato language spoken by only about six million people and whose alphabet includes the letters Æ, Ø and Å, is perhaps an unlikely choice for pop’s next lingua franca.
From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
Note: The length unit angstrom, Å, is often used to represent atomic-scale dimensions and is equivalent to 10−10 m.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 14, 2019
Insight into the Ebola virus nucleocapsid assembly mechanism: crystal structure of Ebola virus nucleoprotein core domain at 1.8 Å resolution.
From Nature ● Nov. 7, 2017
At the third epoch, when near-infrared wavelength information was again available, the peak shifted further to 11,000 Å and the overall spectral shape changed.
From Nature ● Oct. 15, 2017
Some songs—such as “A Guid New Year to ane a’ A’”—were widely recognized.
From National Geographic ● Dec. 27, 2023
Whether all this adds up to some big change a’ coming to City Hall, it’s too soon to say.
From Seattle Times ● May 24, 2023
After a’ dominating Thanksgiving win over Dallas two-plus years ago, Anthony posted a clip of his brother’s leaping pick-six of quarterback Andy Dalton and urged people to vote for Sweat to make the Pro Bowl.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 5, 2023
This masterpiece presents a dachshund with multiple paws a’ flapping looking somewhat between a well-oiled machine and progress itself, as it purposefully walks down the street.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 14, 2018
Still...these people were a' little too smug for their own good.
From "Gregor the Overlander" by Suzanne Collins
And Robert Heath was sort of a- adventurous entrepreneur of a neurologist and psychiatrist.
From Scientific American ● May 4, 2023
That giant thing of spices that looks like a-
From Salon ● Mar. 30, 2019
Average sizes are about 2.0 μm and 1.2 μm along the a- and c-axes, respectively. b, AFM height image and height profiles for the MFI nanosheets.
From Nature ● Mar. 14, 2017
The Israeli grandmaster plays the positional side of a Benko Gambit to perfection, building up great pressure on the a- and b-files while the great Benko bishop strafes the White position from g7.
From Washington Times ● May 12, 2015
You wouldn’t ha’ believed in them first days of April that trouble was a- brewin’ fer all of us—ever’ one was feelin’ good, and we was gettin’ along so fine.”
From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt
The ponds, which cover nearly 5,000 hectares, display constantly changing colours -a view he says he never tires of.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2025
Usually words ending in "-o" are masculine and those ending in "-a" are feminine, but there are many common words that break those gender rules, like "la mano," the word for "hand."
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2022
Brady engineered the game’s lone touchdown drive -a five-play, 69-yard march punctuated by an over-the-shoulder, 29-yard throw into the hands of tight end Rob Gronkowski.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 4, 2019
He needs to grow up or get out -a cancer in the locker room.
From New York Times ● Jan. 9, 2017
Then from the north -beyond the torrent of ice that blocked the trail, behind the clouds that hid the Mountain of the World Spirit -a wolf howled.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
"The All Blacks are a classy outfit, and they'll punish you if you're not on your A- game, and at times we weren't," admitted Irish skipper Dan Sheehan.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
“Mandalorian” got an average grade of A- from audiences, according to market research firm CinemaScore.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 24, 2026
A recent report card from Children Now, a nonprofit advocacy group, rated California a D on children’s access to preventive care, despite the state’s A- grade for ensuring children have coverage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2024
Normally it’s sort of fun to count the A- , B-, and Z-listers shilling for mayonnaise and sneakers.
From Slate ● Feb. 12, 2024
I put on my high heels, a gray A- line dress that I had made myself, and a little bit of lipstick.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
Determine the equation and sketch the trace of the ring torus from a. on the xy-plane.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
You may notice that the graphs in parts a. and b. are identical.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
In a similar fashion to a., we can approach the origin along any straight line passing through the origin.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
From part a. we see that receiving $1.5 million dollars over the course of 20 years is worth $18.693 million dollars in today’s dollars.
From Textbooks ● Mar. 30, 2016
When we got there, Grandma was out in the yard, standing over a. thing made out of lumber in the shape of a teepee.
From "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
The inspiration: 1920s Southern California estate gardens created by A. E. Hanson.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
A. Before the Texas Stock Exchange launched, there were a lot of rumors about what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others in the state were planning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
His wife, Asia R. A., was handed a juvenile sentence of nine and a half years.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
Dan Greenberg, a senior legal fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, had similar skepticism about how courts might act, citing Turner v.
From Salon ● Jul. 10, 2026
To the operator, he said, “I need the number for an Angela or A. DuPre on Stonehenge—DuPre—D-U-P-R-E.”
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things, if you look, cause it’s such a–
From Slate ● Jan. 22, 2020
The montage ends with a honest rap from Issa: “I don’t want to be here, but my ex won’t take me back. So my broken a– is here, small-talking over apps.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 28, 2017
We created a– civilian review board, gave them their own detectives.
From Time ● Jan. 17, 2016
MELBER: Now your path here– involved time as a– as a lawyer and a prosecutor.
From MSNBC ● Feb. 12, 2015
But whatever happens, you’ll 240 believe I’ve done my best, won’t you?–even if I’m not a– Promise me straight, you’ll lock up tight every night.”
From Into the Primitive by Bennett, Robert Ames
The Dodgers pushed back Ohtani’s start this week from Wednesday against the A’s to Friday against a division rival.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
This series marks the Dodgers’ lone scheduled visit during the A’s three-year stay here.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
In the same way a dismal class performance on a business school exam will still yield some A’s, curves also apply in the stock market when a company’s results aren’t necessarily jumping off the page.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
To settle the transfer, the U.S. bank subtracts the funds from Bank A's balance and adds them to Bank B's.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
Princeton’s mother, Bessy Piusten, is pleased with the results, saying her children have been getting all A’s and B’s since they started online tutoring about two years ago ...
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
As AI technology continues to evolve, many Hollywood creatives have grown concerned about how their work is being used to train AI models without their permission and compensation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
As the VAT announcement will save households about £45 a year, "the fear of juggling budgets that simply don't balance remains", says Juliette Flachm, Acting Head of Policy and Public Affair.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026
As Ms. Abrams sings about a mental-health crisis, the tempo increases and a string arrangement hints at drama.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
As soon as there was a new engine, we built a new aircraft.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
As long as no one else knows, they are safe from public scrutiny.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Like other Romance languages, Spanish divides most endings of nouns into masculine o’s or feminine a’s.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 12, 2021
And then, every fourth January, we’re suddenly expected to say it, to spell it, to know where to place the u’s and a’s.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2017
But there is no doubt who is the original source of the line, and his last name is spelled with two a's.
From Time Magazine Archive
As a foriner, ce hardest cing in English to lern is ce usage of ce's and a's.
From Time Magazine Archive
“He spells it with one a. The two a’s seem a little fancy to his friends.”
From "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
The strategy drew attention when former Sen. Mitt Romney, the Utah Republican, disclosed during his 2012 presidential campaign that his IRA had as much as $101 million in assets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Sponsors say most continuation vehicles aren’t intended for zombie funds, as many buyers in the secondary market aren’t focused on impaired assets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Several of those individuals have reported stakes over $1 million in individual companies, and as high as $6 million—though limited disclosure makes it hard to estimate balances.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
A higher interest-rate environment typically weighs on nonyielding assets such as gold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Father Monaghan is aware of her terrible secret—that she suffers from leprosy—and he wants to keep her as healthy as possible.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
