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say it: AL-fuh
alpha is a noun and adjective meaning "the 1st letter of the Greek alphabet". It carries 4 recorded senses.
the 1st letter of the Greek alphabet
the beginning of a series or sequence
“the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”
first in order of importance
“the alpha male in the group of chimpanzees”
“the alpha star in a constellation is the brightest or main star”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for alpha come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.