aleph
UK[ˈɑːlɪf]US[ˈɑːlɪf]
n
The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
n
In mathematics, used to denote certain infinite cardinal numbers (e.g., aleph-null).
Etymology
The word 'aleph' entered English in the 14th century, borrowed from the Hebrew 'āleph', which was itself derived from the Phoenician word for 'ox'. The original pictogram for this Semitic letter represented an ox's head. This deep historical connection to a concrete object (the ox) is typical of the world's oldest alphabets, where letters often originated from stylized drawings. In English, the term is used specifically to name the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its adoption into mathematical symbolism by Georg Cantor in the late 19th century to represent transfinite numbers abstractly extended its meaning far beyond its linguistic origins, leveraging its position as a symbolic "first" in a sequence.
Analysis
The word is a direct loanword from Hebrew. It is not productively segmented into smaller morphemes within the English spelling system.
Examples
The word 'aleph' denotes the first letter of the Hebrew script.
In set theory, aleph-null represents the smallest infinite cardinal number.
The ancient symbol for aleph is thought to have been based on the head of an ox.