alphabet

/ˌælfəˈbɛt/

/ˈælfəbɛt/

Other forms: alphabets

An alphabet is a set of all the letters in a written language. The letters in an alphabet represent the different sounds in that language. When you sing the A, B, C song, you are singing the English alphabet. Rock on.

If you grew up speaking English, you're most familiar with the English alphabet, which is based on the 26-letter Latin alphabet. Other languages, like German, use this same alphabet with a few added characters, like Ü and ß, to represent specific sounds in spoken German. The Greek root of alphabet is alphabetos, a combination of the first and second letters in the Greek alphabet, alpha, and beta.

Definitions of alphabet

1. noun

   a character set that includes letters and is used to write a language
   types:

   Armenian, Armenian alphabet

   a writing system having an alphabet of 38 letters in which the Armenian language is written

   Latin alphabet, Roman alphabet

   the alphabet evolved by the ancient Romans which serves for writing most of the languages of western Europe

   Hebraic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script

   a Semitic alphabet used since the 5th century BC for writing the Hebrew language (and later for writing Yiddish and Ladino)

   Greek alphabet

   the alphabet used by ancient Greeks

   Cyrillic, Cyrillic alphabet

   an alphabet derived from the Greek alphabet and used for writing Slavic languages (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, and some other Slavic languages)

   Arabic alphabet

   the alphabet of 28 characters derived from Aramaic and used for writing Arabic languages (and borrowed for writing Urdu)

   phonetic alphabet, sound alphabet

   an alphabet of characters intended to represent specific sounds of speech

   finger alphabet, manual alphabet

   an alphabet used by the deaf; letters are represented by finger positions

   visible speech

   a phonetic alphabet invented by Melville Bell in the 19th century

   type of:

   script

   a particular orthography or writing system

   character set

   an ordered list of characters that are used together in writing or printing
2. noun

   the elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)
   synonyms: ABC, ABC's, ABCs, first principle, first rudiment, rudiment

   type of:

   basic principle, basics, bedrock, fundamental principle, fundamentals

   principles from which other truths can be derived