Roman alphabet

American  

noun

1. Latin alphabet.

---

Roman alphabet British  

noun

1. the alphabet evolved by the ancient Romans for the writing of Latin, based upon an Etruscan form derived from the Greeks and ultimately from the Phoenicians. The alphabet serves for writing most of the languages of W Europe and many other languages

---

Etymology

Origin of Roman alphabet

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

These consonant clusters comprise multiple letters when written out in the Roman alphabet, but are one letter in the Yautja alphabet.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 10, 2025

Finally, the Roman alphabet, still used in western and central Europe today, was based on Etruscan modifications to the Greek alphabet.

From Textbooks • Apr. 19, 2023

The church adapted the Roman alphabet to introduce literacy in the Sora language, and in the 1980s a flood of government schools, roads, employment and development cash introduced speaking and writing in Odia, too.

From Scientific American • Jan. 5, 2023

Among the other intricate pieces are Stephen Benedicto’s pencil-drawn black-on-black labyrinth and Ying Zhu’s wry homage to the Roman alphabet, in which A’s swarm like ants.

From Washington Post • Feb. 27, 2020

The Roman alphabet itself was the end product of a long sequence of blueprint copying.

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