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

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Etymology

Origin of alphabet

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

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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

But over time, the system grew into an alphabet soup of programs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

All known life on Earth relies on the same four-letter genetic alphabet.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 5, 2026

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

In three years, he said, he mastered the alphabet, but "it took me 22 years to master 650 words" of vocabulary.

From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026

Looking down each column, you will see letters that come from the same cipher alphabet.

From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield

This began with the first alphabets and handwriting.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

A major advantage of shaping photons is that it allows researchers to use high-dimensional encoding alphabets.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 26, 2026

She has potty-trained children, taught them Spanish, taught them their alphabets and colors and has made sure they were ready for school by the time they entered kindergarten.

From Seattle Times ● May 15, 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

For example, missionary linguists are working on modified Roman alphabets for hundreds of New Guinea and Native American languages.

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

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