At a Glance
Alphabet sampler
Various types of stitches, along with letters and numbers, are shown on this embroidery sampler from 1760.
alphabet
writing
alphabet, set of graphs, or characters, used to represent the phonemic structure of a language. In most alphabets the characters are arranged in a definite order, or sequence (e.g., A, B, C, etc.). In the usual case, each alphabetic character represents either a consonant or a vowel rather than a syllable or a group of consonants and vowels. As a result, the number of characters required can be held to a relative few. A language...