alpha
Noun · AdjectiveOpen English WordNet
Noun (2)alphas
- the 1st letter of the Greek alphabetType of letter, letter of the alphabetMember of Greek alphabet
- the beginning of a series or sequence“the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end — The Bible, Revelations 22:13”Type of start
Adjective (2)
- first in order of importance“the alpha male in the group of chimpanzees”“the alpha star in a constellation is the brightest or main star”Opposite unimportantSimilar important, of import
- early testing stage of a software or hardware product“alpha version”Opposite nonexplorativeSimilar exploratory, explorative
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: L. alpha, Gr. ἄλφα, from Heb. āleph, name of the first letter in the alphabet, also meaning ox.
The first letter in the Greek alphabet, answering to A, and hence used to denote the beginning.
In am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.— Rev. xxii. 13.
Formerly used also denote the chief; as, Plato was the alpha of the wits.
☞ In cataloguing stars, the brightest star of a constellation in designated by Alpha (α); as, α Lyræ.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54
Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
<language> (Or "Input") An extension of ALGOL 60 for the M-20 computer developed by A.P. Ershov at Novosibirsk in
1961.ALPHA includes matrix operations, slices, and complex arithmetic.
["The Alpha Automatic Programming System", A.P. Ershov ed., A-P 1971].
(1995-05-10)
1.<tool> A compiler generator written by Andreas Koschinsky <koschins@cs.tu-berlin.de> and described in his thesis at the Technische Universitaet Berlin. Alpha takes an attribute grammar and uses Bison and Flex to generate a parser, a scanner and an ASE evaluator (Jazayeri and Walter).
The documentation is in german.
(1993-02-16)
2.<processor> DEC Alpha.
(1995-05-10)