phonetic alphabet

American  

noun

1. an alphabet containing a separate character for each distinguishable speech sound.

---

phonetic alphabet British  

noun

1. a list of the words used in communications to represent the letters of the alphabet, as in E for Echo, T for Tango

---

Etymology

Origin of phonetic alphabet

First recorded in 1860–65

Example Sentences

They say they have found four basic components they think make up this phonetic alphabet.

From Seattle Times • May 7, 2024

For much of the show’s run, various minor nurse characters were so interchangeable that they were repeatedly named “Able” and “Baker” — literally, “A” and “B” in an older version of the military phonetic alphabet.

From New York Times • Sep. 16, 2022

I would watch the night’s TV, phone my copy in at midnight and the copy-taker, enraged by my version of the phonetic alphabet, would say: “Is there much more of this stuff?”

From The Guardian • Mar. 3, 2019

The phrase comes from the military phonetic alphabet; it is not slang.

From Washington Post • Mar. 18, 2016

We find systems of writing in all the stages from pure pictures to the phonetic alphabet; in Egyptian hieroglyphics we find a mixture of all the stages.

From The Booklover and His Books by Koopman, Harry Lyman