alphabet

American  

[al-fuh-bet, -bit] / ˈæl fəˌbɛt, -bɪt /

noun

• alphabets
  plural

1. the letters of a language in their customary order.

2. any system of characters or signs with which a language is written.

   the Greek alphabet.

3. any system of characters or signs used to represent the sounds of a language.

   the phonetic alphabet.

4. first elements; basic facts; simplest rudiments.

   the alphabet of genetics.

5. the alphabet, a system of writing, developed in the ancient Middle East and transmitted from the northwest Semites to the Greeks, in which each symbol ideally represents one sound unit in the spoken language, and from which most alphabetic scripts are derived.

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alphabet British  

/ ˈælfəˌbɛt /

noun

1. a set of letters or other signs used in a writing system, usually arranged in a fixed order, each letter or sign being used to represent one or sometimes more than one phoneme in the language being transcribed

2. any set of symbols or characters, esp one representing sounds of speech

3. basic principles or rudiments, as of a subject

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prealphabet
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• alphabets
  plural

Etymology

Origin of alphabet

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English alphabete from Late Latin alphabētum, alteration of Greek alphábētos; see alpha, beta

Explanation

An alphabet is a set of all the letters in a written language. The letters in an alphabet represent the different sounds in that language. When you sing the A, B, C song, you are singing the English alphabet. Rock on. If you grew up speaking English, you're most familiar with the English alphabet, which is based on the 26-letter Latin alphabet. Other languages, like German, use this same alphabet with a few added characters, like Ü and ß, to represent specific sounds in spoken German. The Greek root of alphabet is alphabetos, a combination of the first and second letters in the Greek alphabet, alpha, and beta.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

alphabet alphabets

And speaking of word games … For a juicy twist on a game involving the letters of the alphabet, may we recommend Slate’s Pears?

From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026

“It’s an alphabet soup of configurations that can be incredibly confusing,” Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, told MarketWatch about all the premium screening options.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026

Can you name the best performing nation at World Cups for each letter of the alphabet?

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

"I can make out all the letters of the alphabet, even the smallest ones," he marvelled, pointing to his phone screen.

From Barron's ● May 27, 2026

Because I watched her when she was putting the books away, and her mouth didn’t move at all the way mine does when I’m saying the alphabet in my head.

From Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff

Czernowitz was by then a Habsburg afterimage: Jews, Germans, Romanians, Ukrainians and Poles, brushing past one another in schools, markets and cafes, their lives conducted in competing alphabets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

The database includes misspellings, mixed alphabets, and coded inscriptions.

From Science Daily ● Dec. 16, 2025

We were born with the language to play and be curious before we even understood letters and alphabets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2024

So the Shakespeare skeptics were convinced that by looking closely at the letters used to spell each word in Shakespeare’s works, they could make out two different alphabets and uncover a code from Francis Bacon.

From Scientific American ● Oct. 12, 2023

Similarly, Japan continues to use its horrendously cumbersome kanji writing system in preference to efficient alphabets or Japan’s own efficient kana syllabary—because the prestige attached to kanji is so great.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond