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

Derived 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

It also has a maturing satellite-communications business, as well as an early-stage artificial-intelligence component with multibillion-dollar deals supplying Alphabet and Anthropic.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 12, 2026

It also has a maturing satellite-communications business, as well as an early-stage artificial-intelligence component with multibillion-dollar deals supplying Alphabet and Anthropic.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 12, 2026

Many people “have a healthy skepticism in the era of AI,” said Suzanne Philion, chief marketing officer at Waymo, now a Google sibling within Alphabet.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 11, 2026

The upshot is that holders will get back $50 a share if Alphabet common stock is between roughly $360 a share and around $440 a share—the terms are slightly different on the two issues.

From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026

“Dey all useter call me Alphabet ’cause so many people had done named me different names.

From "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston