Letters

How to spell letters

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce letters

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does letters mean?

1. nounThe written symbols that make up the alphabet.
2. nounWritten or printed messages sent from one person to another.

Letters in a sentence

• The child learned to recognise the letters of the alphabet.

• She kept a shoebox full of old letters from her grandmother.

• The sign painter spaced the letters evenly across the shopfront.

• The postman delivered three letters and a parcel this morning.

Where does letters come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin littera, which meant a single written character of the alphabet, and in its plural form litterae came to mean a written message, a document, and eventually literature and learning itself. It travelled into English through Old French as lettre during the medieval period, arriving with both of those layers of meaning intact: the marks on a page and the message they spell out. By the 1200s English speakers were using it for the symbols of the alphabet, and soon afterwards for the folded, sealed notes carried between people. The same litterae that gave us correspondence also gave us 'literature', 'literacy', and 'literal', all sharing the idea of things written down. The doubled t in the spelling preserves the original Latin littera faithfully, which is a useful reminder when writing it.

How the word is built

• letter (from Latin littera: a written character)
• -s (plural)