alphabet

Meanings

Noun

• The set of letters used when writing in a language.
• A writing system in which letters represent phonemes.
• A typically finite set of distinguishable symbols.
• An individual letter of an alphabet; an alphabetic character.
• The simplest rudiments; elements.
• an agent of the FBI, the CIA, and other government agencies.

Verb

• To designate by the letters of the alphabet; to arrange alphabetically.

Related

Similar words

• ABC, absey
• alphabetize

Broader meaning words

• signary

Origin

• From Middle English alphabete, borrowed from Late Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος, from ἄλφα and βῆτα, the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Α and Β, lowercase forms α and β. The Greek names derived from aleph, the name of the Phoenician letter 𐤀 and beth, the name of the letter 𐤁, so called because they were pictograms of those objects, having developed from the Egyptian hieroglyphs F1 (𓃾) and pr (𓉐).
  alfabeto.