alphabet

American  

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

noun

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

• prealphabet adjective

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

"Korean is known as the most scientific language on the planet and the actual alphabet you can learn in four hours," she said.

From BBC • Apr. 6, 2026

Each letter in a standard Caesar cipher is replaced by the one three spots down the alphabet so an ‘A’ becomes a ‘D.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 2, 2026

Even Americans who have never watched a minute of C-SPAN, or get a little lost in the alphabet soup of other agencies, will probably never forget standing in Yosemite Valley and admiring a towering waterfall.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 14, 2026

The American presidency is an alphabet soup of acronyms.

From Slate • Mar. 11, 2026

How to write—not just the alphabet but characters.

From "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson" by Bette Bao Lord