—made use of for a functionality term in advance of a suitable noun to distinguish the problem in the referent from a standard, former, or hypothetical condition

When The traditional Greeks adopted the alphabet, that they had no use for your letter symbolizing a glottal halt—so that they tailored sign to depict the vowel /a/, contacting the letter via the very similar name alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions relationship to the 8th century BC pursuing the Greek Dim Ages, the letter rests upon its facet.

to start with took shape in Greek handwriting in a type (5) similar to the present English capital letter. Concerning the 4th century ce this was given a round condition with a projection (6). This condition was the mum or dad of both equally the English handwritten character (seven) plus the printed modest a

In turn, the ancestor of aleph may well have been a pictogram of the ox head in proto-Sinaitic script[five] affected by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled to be a triangular head with two horns extended.

used prior to some uncountable nouns when you want to limit their this means in some way, such as when describing them extra totally or referring to at least one illustration of them:

are represented by η. The two remaining developments with the seem are on account of rounding: (five) the vowel of water

applied before a noun to confer with a single point or person who has not been pointed out before, especially when you are not referring to a particular factor or human being:

Muntinlupa's terrain is relatively flat to sloping towards the east alongside the lake. Light rolling hills occupy the western A part of town, with elevation increasing approximately 60 meters (200 ft) and over in direction of its southwest portion.

We pronounce the in two techniques based upon if the audio which arrives following the is usually a vowel or even a consonant: …

a, letter that has stood at The pinnacle in the alphabet during The complete of your period of time by which it could be traced historically. The title on the letter inside the Phoenician time period resembled the Hebrew name aleph that means “ox”; the form is thought to derive from an before image resembling the head of the ox.

. You will discover of course plenty of slight versions in the tactic of pronouncing this sound. In here English the audio has gone through far-achieving changes during and considering the fact that the center English time period. They are resulting from fronting, that is to convey, pronouncing the sound a lot more toward the front of your mouth, or to rounding, marginally rounding the lips, which has the effect of leading to the seem being pronounced better while in the mouth.

[ C/U ]   music   plural A’s or As read more in Western songs, the sixth Notice in the scale (= series of notes) that starts to the Take note C, or possibly a list of notes based on this Take note

In English language training, the term apple is continually connected with the letter A.[7] In contemporary English orthography, the letter ⟨a⟩ signifies no less than seven various vowel Appears, right here represented using the vowels of Been given Pronunciation, with outcomes of ⟨r⟩ ignored and mergers in General American mentioned where suitable:

Italic sort is often used to mark emphasis or even more commonly to tell apart just one A part of a textual content from your relaxation established in Roman type.

⟨ᴀ⟩: Compact capital A, an out of date or non-conventional symbol inside the Worldwide Phonetic Alphabet used to represent different sounds (primarily open vowels)

A is commonly accustomed to denote some thing or someone of a better or even more prestigious high quality or standing: A−, A or possibly a+, the most beneficial grade that could be assigned by academics for college students' schoolwork; "A quality" for thoroughly clean dining places; A-listing superstars, A1 at Lloyd's for shipping and delivery, and so forth.