Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet (#722), representing the older Phenician letter which gave name and form to the Greek A, α%148λφα. See a.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, and its descendants in descended Semitic scripts as Phoenician Aleph 𐤀 (ʾ, "aleph"), Aramaic 𐡀, Syriac ܐ ("'ālaph"), Hebrew א ("aleph") and Arabic ا (ʾ, "ʾálif").

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the 1st letter of the Hebrew alphabet

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Hebrew ’ālep, of Phoenician origin; see ℵlp in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Hebrew אלף (álef), with a Hellenized ph spelling due to influence from alpha.

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Examples

  • That meant I had to remember the shape of aleph, which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

    Anita Diamant: A Happily Bifurcated Yoga Jew: Why I Keep My Asanas and My 'Adonais' Separate 2010

  • That meant I had to remember the shape of aleph, which is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

    Anita Diamant: A Happily Bifurcated Yoga Jew: Why I Keep My Asanas and My 'Adonais' Separate Anita Diamant 2010

  • But I wasn't influenced by him, I was influenced by the idea of aleph, the concept.

    NYT > Home Page By JULIE BOSMAN 2011

  • But I wasn't influenced by him, I was influenced by the idea of aleph, the concept.

    NYT > Home Page By JULIE BOSMAN 2011

  • I don't do this very often but the other day I had an otherwise twiddling my thumbs opportunity and was surprised to find that I generated correctly and with all possible meaninngs 42 of the 67 'aleph' verbs.

    Archive 2006-06-01 Yael K 2006

  • Did you know the aleph is the first letter of God’s mystical name in Exodus?

    Deeper Jeff Long 2007

  • The aleph is the origin of the first letter in our alphabet, a celebration of our contract with nature’s power.

    Deeper Jeff Long 2007

  • Did you know the aleph is the first letter of God’s mystical name in Exodus?

    Deeper Jeff Long 2007

  • The aleph is the origin of the first letter in our alphabet, a celebration of our contract with nature’s power.

    Deeper Jeff Long 2007

  • Those receive intermediate exam sheets, others are given 'aleph' (beginners ') exam sheets.

    cafebabel.com 2009

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