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; alpha, beta

Example Sentences

Some of it was in the alphabet he knew, some of it in alphabets he had never seen, with pictures, or great hashed strokes of geometry.

From Literature

Now, 1099-R forms, which detail distributions from IRA accounts, have new additions to the alphabet code that distinguishes penalty-free distributions from ones that have a penalty.

From MarketWatch

“Yesterday she informed me that Brooks should know his alphabet by now.”

From Literature

It feels strange that I will be the teacher of two elders who could be my grandparents, but I pull out the notebooks and pencils and write out the letters of the alphabet.

From Literature

In his current role, Dylan covers an alphabet soup of regulators and law enforcement agencies, from the U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal