alphabet

CEFRA1

/ˈæl.fəˌbɛt/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    The set of letters used to write a language.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    A writing system in which letters represent phonemes. (Contrast e.g. logography, a writing system in which each character represents a word, and syllabary, in which each character represents a syllable.)

Examples

  • In this secret code, each number stands for a letter of the alphabet.

  • Q comes between P and R in the English alphabet.

At a glance

Sits at A1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
4
Synonyms
1

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. The set of letters used when writing in a language.

  2. A writing system in which there are letters for the consonant and vowel phonemes. (Contrast e.g. abjad.)

  3. A typically finite set of distinguishable symbols.

More examples

In context

  • The English alphabet has 26 letters.

  • In the first year of school, pupils are taught to recite the alphabet.

  • Let L be a regular language over the alphabet #92;Sigma.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Children in kindergarten learn each letter of the blank from A to Z.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English alphabete, borrowed from Classical Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos), from ἄλφα (álpha) and βῆτα (bêta), the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Α (A) and Β (B), lowercase forms α and β. The Greek names derived from aleph, the name of the Phoenician letter 𐤀 (ʾ, “ox”) and beth, the name of the letter 𐤁 (b, “house”), so called because they were pictograms of those objects, having developed from the Egyptian hieroglyphs F1 (𓃾) and pr (𓉐). Doublet of alfabeto.