PRONOUNCING

A, which it is the thirteenth, and the Runic, in which it is the tenth. It has, in English, four distinct sounds: the long or slender, as in place, fate, cake; the short, as in cat, china,fancy; the open, or Italian, as in father, cast, gla ; and the broad, as in wall, appal, A, a which contraction is shortened of the in Anglo-Saxon squad, what. an or ane, is called the indefinite article, implying one, any, someone, and is used before nouns of the singular number, as aman, a tree. Before a word beginning with a vowel or a silent h, it is, for the sake of euphony, changed into an, as an owl, an heir. our provincial dialects, of which the following are some: . ah, he, they, all, on, have, one, always, yes, even, It has also a peculiar signification, denoting proportion, or each, as a hundred a year, a pound, aman. It is also sometimes placed before a participle, as gone a-hunting, come a-begging, the house is a-building. to the prepositions in or on, as in asleep, alive, afoot, aground. A is also a prefix of Latin and Greek words, and means,when prefixed to Latin words away from, as avert, to turn away from, vert meaning to turn; and when prefixed to Greek words, it means not or without, as atom, what cannot be divided, tom coming from aword meaning to cut. ., as, A.M., artium magister, master of arts; A.D., anno Domini, in the year of Our Lord; A.M. antemeridiem, before noon. Among the Romans, A.U.C., building stood for of anno the city, uris orRome. conduitæ, A, from orAA, the in pharmacy, year of the are abbreviations of the Greek word ana, signifying of each. natural diatonic scale, and corresponds to the la of Guido. It is also the name of one of the two natural moods; and it is the open note of the second string of the violin,by which the other strings are tuned and regulated. A1, in Lloyd's the A referring shipping list, the mark of a ship of the first cla , to the quality of the ship, and the 1 to that of the equipment; first-rate.