noun, masculine/al.fa.bɛ/plural: alphabets
alphabet (set of letters considered as a group)
Related: alphabet latin, alphabet phonétique international, alphabet radio, alphabetical language
Borrowed from Late Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos), from ἄλφα (álpha) (Α,α) and βῆτα (bêta) (Β,β) (the first two letters of the Greek alphabet), from Phoenician aleph 𐤀 (ʾ, “ox”) and beth 𐤁 (b, “house”), so called because they were pictograms of those objects, having developed from the Egyptian hieroglyphs F1 (𓃾) and pr (𓉐).