alphabets

Noun

alphabet (plural alphabets)

1. The set of letters used when writing in a language.
   • The Greek alphabet has only twenty-four letters.
2. 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.)
   1. 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.
   • Let L be a regular language over the alphabet #92;Sigma.
4. (Africa, Hong-Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore, dialectal) An individual letter of an alphabet; an alphabetic character.
   • The notes are named with the first seven alphabets.
5. The simplest rudiments; elements.
   • The very alphabet of our law.1828, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “The Constitutional History of England: From the Accession of Henry VII, to the Death of George II, by Henry Hallam”, in The Edinburgh Review, volume 18

See all 8 meanings of alphabet