alfabeto

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian alfabeto (“alphabet”).

Noun

alfabeto (uncountable)

1. Noodles shaped like letters of the alphabet.
   • 2016, The New Slow Cooker Cookbook, Adams Media:

     Small pastas like orzo, acini di pepe, pastina, alfabeto, and ditalini are perfect for adding to soups.

2. (music, historical) An early Italian alphabetic notation system used to describe chords.
   • 1987, Journal of the Lute Society of America, volume 17-18, page 127:

     The monograph should deal not only with modal scales (their range, ambitus, "centonized" gestures, cadences, and structural application in music) but would similarly need to deal with the guitar's alfabeto, the labyrinth of guitar chords, movable chords, transposed chords, the progressions of B quadro and B molle in the alfabeto books, and so forth.

   • 1987, Betty Bang Mather, Dance Rhythms of the French Baroque: A Handbook for Performance, page 30:

     Composers for harpsichord, lute, viol, and guitar often placed chords or ornaments on notes in the positions of those strummed downward in the alfabeto tablatures, and composers for all instruments gave longer values to many of them.

   • 1993, Stanley Yates, The baroque guitar, late Spanish style as represented by Santiago de Murcia in the Salvidar manuscript (1732):

     In the Italian system, each letter of the alfabeto represents a chord formation on the guitar (the letter A, for example, represents a G-major chord).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /alfaˈbeto/
• Hyphenation: al‧fa‧be‧to
• Rhymes: -eto

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

alfabeto (accusative singular alfabeton, plural alfabetoj, accusative plural alfabetojn)

1. (grammar) alphabet

Noun

alfabeto m (plural alfabetos)

1. alphabet

Noun

alfabeto (plural alfabeti)

1. (grammar) alphabet

Etymology

From Late Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek αλφάβητος (alphábētos), from alpha and beta (the first two letters of the Greek alphabet), from Phoenician 𐤀‎ (aleph, “ox”) and 𐤁‎ (beth, “house”), so called because they were pictograms of those objects.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /al.faˈbɛ.to/, [älfäˈbɛːt̪o]
• Hyphenation: al‧fa‧bè‧to

Noun

alfabeto m (plural alfabeti)

1. alphabet

Alternative forms

• alphabeto (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos).

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /aɫ.fɐ.ˈβɛ.tu/
• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /aw.fa.ˈbɛ.tu/
• Hyphenation: al‧fa‧be‧to

Noun

alfabeto m (plural alfabetos)

1. alphabet

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /alfaˈbeto/, [alfaˈβet̪o]

Etymology 1

From Latin alphabētum, from Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos).

Etymology 2

Back-formation from analfabeto.