alphabet
pronunciation
How to pronounce alphabet in British English:
UK [ˈælfəbet]
How to pronounce alphabet in American English:
US [ˈælfəbet]
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- Noun:
- a character set that includes letters and is used to write a language
- the elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)
Word Origin
- alphabet
- alphabet: [15] This word is based on the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta, standing for the whole. It derives from Greek alphabētos, via Latin alphabētum. When it first came into English, purists tried to insist that it should be reserved for the Greek alphabet, and that the English alphabet should be referred to by the term ABC (which had been lexicalized in various forms, such as abece, apece, and absee, since the late 13th century), but, like most such prescriptive demands, this was a waste of breath and ink.
- alphabet (n.)
- 1570s, from Late Latin alphabetum (Tertullian), from Greek alphabetos, from alpha + beta. Alphabet soup first attested 1907. Words for it in Old English included stæfræw, literally "row of letters," stæfrof "array of letters." It was a wise though a lazy cleric whom Luther mentions in his "Table Talk,"--the monk who, instead of reciting his breviary, used to run over the alphabet and then say, "O my God, take this alphabet, and put it together how you will." [William S. Walsh, "Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities," 1892]
Example
- 1. And thus begins the story of the alphabet .
- 2. You can read every sound that is made and they produced their alphabet .
- 3. The alphabet was a mistake .
- 4. The everyday etruscan alphabet is different , however .
- 5. I forget the exact number of the ones in the semitic alphabet , but we 're talking about roughly twenty-five .