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The first letter in the Greek alphabet, answering to A, and hence used to denote the beginning. In am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Rev. xxii. 13.

The letters of a language arranged in the customary order; the series of letters or signs which form the elements of written language.

Pertaining to, furnished with, expressed by, or in the order of, the letters of the alphabet; as, alphabetic characters, writing, languages, arrangement.

In an alphabetic manner; in the customary order of the letters.

The science of representing spoken sounds by letters.

an amorist to impress the name of his mistress in the dust, or upon the damp earth, with letters fixed upon his shoe. Southey.

Literally, the letters of a word read backwards, but in its usual wider sense, the change or one word or phrase into another by the transposition of its letters. Thus Galenus becomes angelus; William Noy (attorney-general to Charles I., and a laborious man) may be turned into I moyl in law.

To transpose, as the letters of a word, so as to form an anagram. Cudworth.

c/bd), where the segments are to regarded as plus or minus, according to the order of the letters.

Curved somewhat in the form of the letter S. Cussans.

of unknown /or unavowed authorship; as, an anonymous benefactor; an anonymous pamphlet or letter.

The dropping of a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word; e. g., cute for acute.

Shortened by dropping a letter or a syllable from the beginning of a word; as, an aphetic word or form. -- A*phet"ic*al*ly, adv. New Eng. Dict.

A letter, or a combination of letters, employed in spelling a word, but in the pronunciation having no sound. -- Aph*thon"gal, a.

To cut off or drop; as, to apocopate a word, or the last letter, syllable, or part of a word.

The cutting off, or omission, of the last letter, syllable, or part of a word.

r it, by way of amends; -- with for; as, my correspondent apologized for not answering my letter. To apologize for his insolent language. Froude.

A marginal note on a letter or other paper; an annotation. Motley.

A brief letter dimissory sent by a court appealed from to the superior court, stating the case, etc.; a paper sent up on appeals in the admiralty courts. Wharton. Burrill. Apostles' creed, a creed of unknown origin, which was formerly ascribed to the apostles. It certainly dates back to the beginning of the sixth centu…

The contraction of a word by the omission of a letter or letters, which omission is marked by the character ['] placed where the letter or letters would have been; as, call'd for called.