| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| alphabet |
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| SYLLABICATION: | al·pha·bet |
| PRONUNCIATION: |   l f -b t , -b t |
| NOUN: | 1. The letters of a language, arranged in the order fixed by custom. 2. A system of characters or symbols representing sounds or things. 3. A set of basic parts or elements: “genetic markers . . . that contain repeated sequences of the DNA alphabet” (Sandra Blakeslee, New York Times 9/13/94). | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English alphabete, from Latin alphab tum, from Greek alphabtos : alpha, alpha; see alpha + bta, beta; see beta.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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