aw-bay-say

Scots

Alternative forms

• ABC, aw-be-sae
• ah-bay-say (Orkney)
• Abbacee, Abersay, ebbasay (Shetland)

Etymology

From Middle English abece, from the first three letters of the Latin alphabet, standing for the whole alphabet.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑːbeːseː/, /-beːsiː/, /ɔː-/
• (Northern Scots, Northern Isles) IPA^(key): /aː-/

Noun

aw-bay-say (plural aw-bay-says)

1. alphabet

References

• “aw-bay-say, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC.
• Eagle, Andy, editor (2024), “aw-bay-say”, in The Online Scots Dictionary‎^[1]