alphabet Hear it!

alphabet Definition

al·pha·bet (al′fə bet′)

noun

  1. the letters of a language, arranged in a traditional order
  2. a system of characters, signs, or symbols used to indicate letters or speech sounds
  3. the first elements or principles, as of a branch of knowledge

Etymology: LL(Ec) alphabetum < LGr alphabētos < Gr alpha + bēta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet

alphabet Synonyms

alphabet

n.

  1. Linguistic symbols

    letters, syllabary, pictographs, ideographs, graphic representation, characters, symbols, signs, runes, futhark, writing system, script, ABC's, system of characters, hieroglyphs, cryptographs, phonemes, sounds, phonetic alphabet, phonetic notation, International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA; see also letter 1.

    Alphabets include: Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, Devanagari, Latin, Roman, Russian, Cyrillic, Hebrew.

  2. Elements

    fundamentals, first principles, rudiments, ABC's; see elements.

alphabet Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • recite: Has difficulty learning to sing or recite the alphabet.
  • invent: All thanks to St. Cyril, who wanted to invent an alphabet that took the best from the available ones.
  • teach: These monks would also have taught the alphabet to the Picts using the Gaelic names of trees to express the sound of the letters.
  • learn: First they learn the alphabet which they then use to form simple words.
  • master: Once he had mastered the alphabet he went straight into the Catechism.
  • know: But I didn't even know the Greek alphabet!

Adjective modifier

  • Cyrillic: Russian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet dating from around the ninth century.
  • phonetic: All the words of the phonetic alphabet have been hidden in the grid below.
  • Phoenician: Latin and the modern Roman alphabet were also adapted from the Phoenician alphabet ( and then from the Greek ).
  • runic: Give yourself a Viking name, learn the runic alphabet and get a certificate signed by Chief God, Odin.
  • Hebrew: Well, they're the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, arranged in order in twenty-two sections of eight lines each.
  • Semitic: Geoffrey Driver, who was Professor of Semitic Philology at Oxford, argued for an essentially Egyptian origin for the North Semitic alphabet.

Modifies a noun

  • soup: From the alphabet soup, which satisfies my requirements best?
  • No.: Part 2: Latin alphabet No. 2, ISO 8859-2, 1987.
  • letter: The basis of the work is first with a set of alphabet letters, then with a user friendly computer keyboard.
  • chart: Sometimes communication aids such as picture and alphabet charts are used to help a person communicate.

Noun used with modifier

  • non-roman: Students whose mother tongue has a non-roman alphabet are often slower learners at first.
  • fingerspelling: We have cards, bookmarks and posters of the fingerspelling alphabet ( sometimes called the manual alphabet ).
  • braille: Sighted people can learn the braille alphabet from its pages.
  • chemical: Genes are a chemical alphabet held in every cell of the body.