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alphabet - 5 dictionary results

al⋅pha⋅bet

  [al-fuh-bet, -bit]
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–noun
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 such system for representing 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 Near 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 alphabetical scripts are derived.
Origin:
1375–1425; late ME alphabete < LL alphabētum, alter. of Gk alphábētos. See alpha, beta
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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al·pha·bet   (āl'fə-bět', -bĭt)   


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n.  
  1. The letters of a language, arranged in the order fixed by custom.
  2. A system of characters or symbols representing sounds or things.
  3. A set of basic parts or elements: "genetic markers . . . that contain repeated sequences of the DNA alphabet" (Sandra Blakeslee).

[Middle English alphabete, from Latin alphabētum, from Greek alphabētos : alpha, alpha; see alpha + bēta, beta; see beta.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Alphabet

Al"pha*bet\, n. [L. alphabetum, fr. Gr. ? + ?, the first two Greek letters; Heb. [=a]leph and beth: cf. F. alphabet.]

1. The letters of a language arranged in the customary order; the series of letters or signs which form the elements of written language.

2. The simplest rudiments; elements.

The very alphabet of our law. --Macaulay.

Deaf and dumb alphabet. See Dactylology.

Alphabet

Al"pha*bet\, v. t. To designate by the letters of the alphabet; to arrange alphabetically. [R.]
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : alphabet
Spanish: alfabeto,
German: das Alphabet,
Japanese: アルファベット
More Translations »

alphabet 
1567 (implied in alphabetical), from L.L. alphabetum (Tertullian), from Gk. alphabetos, from alpha + beta, the first two letters of it, from Heb.-Phoen. aleph, pausal form of eleph "ox" + beth, lit. "house;" the letters so called because their shapes resembled or represented those objects. The Greeks added -a to the end of many Heb.-Phoenician letter names because Gk. words cannot end in most consonants. Alphabet soup first attested 1907.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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