# alphabet

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈæl.fəˌbɛt/ · frequency rank #11,161

## Definitions
1. The set of letters used when writing in a language.
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.)
3. 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.)
4. A typically finite set of distinguishable symbols.
5. An individual letter of an alphabet; an alphabetic character.
6. The simplest rudiments; elements.
7. An agent of the FBI, the CIA, or another such government agency.

## Etymology
From Middle English alphabete, borrowed from Classical Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos), from ἄλφα (álpha) and βῆτα (bêta), the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, Α (A) and Β (B), lowercase forms α and β. The Greek names derived from aleph, the name of the Phoenician letter 𐤀 (ʾ, “ox”) and beth, the name of the letter 𐤁 (b, “house”), so called because they were pictograms of those objects, having developed from the Egyptian hieroglyphs F1 (𓃾) and pr (𓉐).
 Doublet of alfabeto.

## Easily confused with
- **alphabets** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/alphabet-vs-alphabets)

## Common misspellings (12)
`alhpabet`, `allphabet`, `alpahbet`, `alphabbet`, `alphabett`, `alphabte`, `alphaebt`, `alphbaet`, `alphhabet`, `alpphabet`, `aplhabet`, `laphabet`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/alphabet