ALPHABET

Pronunciation (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does alphabet mean? 

• ALPHABET (noun)
  The noun ALPHABET has 2 senses:

1. a character set that includes letters and is used to write a language
2. the elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)

  Familiarity information: ALPHABET used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALPHABET (noun)

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("alphabet" is a kind of...):

script (a particular orthography or writing system)

character set (an ordered list of characters that are used together in writing or printing)

Meronyms (members of "alphabet"):

alphabetic character; letter; letter of the alphabet (the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "alphabet"):

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)

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)

Meaning:

The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

ABC; ABC's; ABCs; first principle; first rudiment; rudiment; alphabet

Context example:

he mastered only the rudiments of geometry

Hypernyms ("alphabet" is a kind of...):

basic principle; basics; bedrock; fundamental principle; fundamentals (principles from which other truths can be derived)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)