NATO phonetic alphabet

American

[nay-toh fuh-net-ik al-fuh-bet] / ˈneɪ toʊ fəˈnɛt ɪk ˈæl fəˌbɛt /

noun

Also called the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, a system in which each letter of the alphabet is assigned a distinct code word that starts with that letter, such as Hotel for H or Yankee for Y. When a letter is used in an identification or abbreviation, it is represented with its code word to avoid confusion in transmission.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023