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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.

A sensitized paper for obtaining positives by artificial light. It is coated with gelatin containing silver bromide and chloride. [Eng.]

Rays of relatively low penetrating power emitted by radium and other radioactive substances, and shown to consist of positively charged particles (perhaps particles of helium) having enormous velocities but small masses. They are slightly deflected by a strong magnetic or electric field.

The simplest rudiments; elements. The very alphabet of our law. Macaulay. Deaf and dumb alphabet. See Dactylology.

A learner of the alphabet; an abecedarian. Abp. Sancroft.

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.

The expression of spoken sounds by an alphabet. Encyc. Brit.

To arrange alphabetically; as, to alphabetize a list of words.

A telegraphic alphabet in very general use, inventing by Samuel F.B.Morse, the inventor of Morse's telegraph. The letters are represented by dots and dashes impressed or printed on paper, as, .- (A), -... (B), -.. (D), . (E), .. (O), ... (R), -- (T), etc., or by sounds, flashes of light, etc., with greater or less inte…

A five-pointed star, resembling five alphas joined at their bases; -- used as a symbol.

An alphabet for the blind with a system of raised points corresponding to letters.

The first letter of the English and of many other alphabets. The capital A of the alphabets of Middle and Western Europe, as also the small letter (a), besides the forms in Italic, black letter, etc., are all descended from the old Latin A, which was borrowed from the Greek Alpha, of the same form; and this was made fr…

The first three letters of the alphabet, used for the whole alphabet.

One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a tyro.

Pertaining to, or formed by, the letters of the alphabet; alphabetic; hence, rudimentary. Abecedarian psalms, hymns, etc., compositions in which (like the 119th psalm in Hebrew) distinct portions or verses commence with successive letters of the alphabet. Hook.

A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian. Double acrostic, a species of enigma, in which words are to be guessed whose initial and final letters form other words.

Divination by means of a cock and grains of corn placed on the letters of the alphabet, the letters being put together in the order in which the grains were eaten. Amer. Cyc.

is the second letter of the English alphabet. (See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 196,220.) It is etymologically related to p , v , f , w and m , letters representing sounds having a close organic affinity to its own sound; as in Eng. bursar and purser; Eng. bear and Lat. pear; Eng. silver and Ger. silber; Lat. cubitum and…