A (ȧemph. ā).1. [Shortenedform ofan. AS. ān one. SeeOne.]An adjective,commonly called the indefinite article, and signifyingone orany, but less emphatically. "Ata birth"; "Inaword"; "Ata blow".Shak. It is placed before nouns of thesingular number denoting an individual object, or a quality individualized,before collective nouns, and also before plural nouns when the adjectivefew or the phrasegreat many orgood many isinterposed; as,a dog,a house,a man;a color;a sweetness;a hundred,a fleet,a regiment;a few persons,a great many days. It is used foran,for the sake of euphony, before words beginning with a consonant sound [forexception of certain words beginning withh, seeAn]; as, atable,a woman,a year,a unit,a eulogy,a ewe,a oneness, sucha one, etc. Formallyanwas used both before vowels and consonants.

2. [Originally the prepositiona (an,on).]In each; to or for each; as, "twenty leaguesaday", "a hundred poundsa year", "a dollara yard",etc.

A. [From AS.of off, from. SeeOf.]Of. [Obs.] "The name of Johna Gaunt." "What timea day is it ?"Shak. "It's sixa clock."B.Jonson.

A.A barbarous corruption ofhave, ofhe,and sometimes ofit and ofthey. "So would Iadone" "A brushes his hat."Shak.

A.An expletive, void of sense, to fill up themeter

A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Shak.

A (named ā in the English, and most commonly ä inother languages).The first letter of the English and of manyother alphabets. The capital A of the alphabets of Middle and WesternEurope, as also the small letter (a), besides the forms in Italic, blackletter, etc., are all descended from the old Latin A, which was borrowedfrom the GreekAlpha, of the same form; and this was made from thefirst letter (?) of the Phœnician alphabet, the equivalent of theHebrewAleph, and itself from the Egyptian origin. TheAlephwas a consonant letter, with a guttural breath sound that was not anelement of Greek articulation; and the Greeks took it to represent theirvowelAlpha with the ä sound, the Phœnician alphabethaving no vowel symbols.

This letter, in English, is used for several different vowel sounds. SeeGuide to pronunciation, §§ 43-74. The regular longa, as infate, etc., is a comparatively modern sound, and hastaken the place of what, till about the early part of the 17th century, wasa sound of the quality of ä (as infar).

2.(Mus.)The name of the sixth tone in themodel major scale (that in C), or the first tone of the minor scale, whichis named after it the scale in A minor. The second string of the violin istuned to the A in the treble staff. -- A sharp (A♯) is the name of amusical tone intermediate between A and B. -- A flat (A♭) is the nameof a tone intermediate between A and G.

A per se (L.per se by itself),onepreëminent; a nonesuch. [Obs.]

O fair Creseide, the flower andA per se
Of Troy and Greece.
Chaucer.

A (ȧ),prep. [Abbreviated form ofan (AS.on). SeeOn.]1.In; on;at; by. [Obs.] "A God's name." "Torna pieces.""Standa tiptoe." "A Sundays"Shak. "Wit that men havenowa days."Chaucer. "Set thema work."Robynson(More's Utopia).

2.In process of; in the act of; into; to; -- usedwith verbal substantives in-ing which begin with a consonant. Thisis a shortened form of the prepositionan (which was used before thevowel sound); as ina hunting,a building,abegging. "Jacob, when he wasa dying"Heb. xi. 21."We'lla birding together." " It wasa doing."Shak."He burst outa laughing."Macaulay. The hyphen may be usedto connecta with the verbal substantive (as,a-hunting,a-building) or the words may be written separately. This form ofexpression is now for the most part obsolete, thea being omittedand the verbal substantive treated as a participle.