alpha
Pluralalphas
Pluralalphas
- 1The first letter of the Greek alphabet (Α, α), which comes before beta and was the forerunner of the Latin letter A.
Greek schoolchildren learn their letters in order, starting with alpha and ending with omega.
A capital alpha looks exactly like a Latin A, but the lowercase form is rounder.
Note
Even in Greek the name is a borrowing: it comes from Phoenician aleph. English has taken in the same ancestor twice more, as aleph and alif, so the three words are doublets that arrived by separate routes. The letter's place at the head of the alphabet, just before beta, is what the word's other meanings lean on: first in rank, the brightest star, the earliest release.
- 2A person, especially a man, who is dominant, successful, and attractive.
He walks into every meeting like an alpha, and most of the room defers to him.
The dating coach promised to turn shy men into confident alphas.
Oppositebeta
Note
The noun is usually alpha male cut short, close kin to the adjective for first in rank: the alpha is the top dog, and a man who is not one gets called a beta male. Its natural home is writing about sex, dating and relationships, where alphas are what some people are drawn to and others hope to become.
- 3Showing the typical qualities of an alpha male or alpha female; said of a person, an object, or an action.
Closing the deal in ten minutes was an alpha move, and everyone in the office knew it.
He tries to look alpha in his profile photos, all sharp suits and serious stares.
Oppositesubmissive
Note
The adjective lets the type behind the "top dog" noun rub off on moods and deeds as well as people, and on women as well as men: an alpha move is as possible as an alpha man. Strictly it has no degrees, yet casual speech grades it anyway, as when a character in Life Is Strange (2015) says, “I'm feeling pretty alpha now.”
- 4The earliest version or versions of a program, usually available only to the developer and tested by no one else.
Only the core developers had access to the alpha, which still lacked half the planned features.
Don't install alphas or betas on a production server; wait for a stable release.
Note
Software is released in stages, and alpha is the earliest: beta comes next, then release candidates, and only then the stable production release that most users should install. Programmers speak of an alpha, one particular early build, and of a project being in alpha, the stage itself; advice on installing software warns readers away from alphas and betas alike.
- 5The name of the symbol Α or α as used in science and mathematics; as a prefix, the written name and the symbol are often interchangeable.
Radon gives off alpha radiation, which is dangerous mainly when the gas is breathed in.
In the proof, alpha stands for the angle between the two vectors.
Note
Science treats the written name and the symbol as near twins when they lead a compound: an alpha particle is just as often an α-particle, and alpha radiation can be α-radiation. The spelled-out name reads more easily in running prose; inside a formula only the bare symbol appears, labeling whatever quantity the writer assigns it.
- 6Holding first place in an order of rank or precedence.
Researchers watched the alpha chimpanzee break up fights within the troop.
The pack's ranks shifted after the alpha female was injured.
Similardominant
- 7Alternative letter-case form of Alpha, meaning a member of Generation Alpha.
A zoomer and an alpha can share a household and still have completely different streaming habits.
Teachers say the average alpha arrived at kindergarten already fluent in touchscreens.
Note
The capitalized Alpha is the main spelling of the generation's name; this lowercase form matches lowercase zoomer, and the two plurals sit side by side when generations are compared: zoomers and alphas. Without the capital, only context keeps it apart from the "top dog" meaning, so nearby talk of ages and childhoods does the work.
- 8Naming a bright star in a constellation, usually the constellation's brightest.
Even at a fraction of light speed, a probe would need decades to reach Alpha Centauri.
Alpha Orionis is a red supergiant that marks one of Orion's shoulders.
Note
A star's scientific name puts alpha first and the constellation after it in its Latin genitive, so the leading star of Centaurus becomes Alpha Centauri. The Greek letters run roughly in order of brightness, with beta for the next star, which is why the alpha star is usually, though not always, the brightest. Inside a name it takes a capital.
- 9The return on a particular asset or portfolio after it has been adjusted for systematic risk.
After fees, the fund generated almost no alpha over the decade.
Analysts compared the alphas of the two portfolios to see which manager had added real value.
Note
The number fund managers are judged by. If the market gains fifteen percent in a year and a fund returns twenty, the fund's alpha is five percent; a negative alpha means it trailed the market. Talk of generating alpha treats it as a mass noun, while comparing the alphas of several funds counts each figure separately.
- 10The degree of translucency of a color in a digital image, as set by the image's alpha channel.
Set the overlay's alpha low enough that the photo beneath it stays visible.
The exported file kept every pixel's alpha, so the soft edges of the logo blended into the page.
Similaropacity
Note
The number really measures opacity: the higher the alpha, the more solid the color, and lowering it lets more of the background show through until, at its lowest, the color vanishes. Graphics software stores it as a fourth value beside red, green and blue. Designers lower a shadow's alpha, or fade a layer out by reducing its alpha.
- 11Clipping of alphabetical.
The spreadsheet can sort the client names in alpha order with one click.
An alpha index at the back of the manual lists every command.
Note
The clipped adjective stands before a noun and is at home in instructions for sorting: alpha order, an alpha list, an alpha index. It carries the A-to-Z meaning of alphabetical, and like the full word it has no comparative, since a list either follows the alphabet or does not.
- 12The significance level of a statistical test: the cutoff used to decide whether a result counts as statistically significant.
We set alpha at 0.01 to lower the risk of a false positive.
Because the p-value fell just above the chosen alpha, the authors could not reject the null hypothesis.
Note
Researchers fix it before they look at the data, and it is the risk they accept of mistaking chance for a real effect, so a smaller alpha makes a test stricter. A result is called significant when its p-value falls below alpha. The longer alpha level means the same thing, and the verb it usually takes is set.
- 13Short for alpha layer.
Export the icon as a PNG with alpha to keep its transparent edges.
The video editor ignored the clip's alpha and filled the empty areas with black.
Note
The shortening drops layer and keeps the modifier, a habit of image and video software: a file is saved with alpha, a clip has no alpha. Used this way it is a mass noun, usually without an article, and it names the stored layer itself rather than the opacity value that layer gives each pixel.
- 14In aviation, the angle of attack: the angle at which a wing meets the oncoming airflow.
Fighter jets can hold a very high alpha during tight turns.
As airspeed dropped, the pilot increased alpha to keep the aircraft level.
Note
Cockpit and wind-tunnel shorthand borrowed from the symbol in equations: angle of attack is written α in aerodynamic formulas, and pilots and engineers simply say the letter's name. It is treated as a quantity, so it rises and falls: a pilot increases alpha, and a fighter jet holds high alpha through a tight turn.
- 15In omegaverse fiction, someone belonging to the dominant secondary sex, compelled by biology, magic, or some other force to bond with an omega and, if male, often given canine-like genitals.
The fic flips the usual setup: the captain is an omega, and the shy navigator turns out to be an alpha.
Fans argue over whether alphas in the omegaverse should be written as possessive or gentle.
Note
It is fandom slang, at home in omegaverse fan fiction, where characters have a second, invented sex besides male or female; stories of the kind go by the label A/B/O. Unlike the "dominant person" meaning, it names a type a character belongs to rather than a personality, so a story pairing two alphas is deliberately playing against type.
- 16The letter Ɑ (lowercase ɑ) of the Latin alphabet, also known as Latin alpha.
Phonetic transcriptions of American English often use an alpha, ɑ, for the vowel in “father.”
The keyboard layout gives the alpha its own key, so linguists can type ɑ without opening a character map.
- 17Clipping of alphabet.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Ancient Greek ἄλφα (álpha), the first letter of the Greek alphabet, which came from the Phoenician letter 𐤀 (ʾ, “aleph”). It is a doublet of alif and aleph.