a. [f. prec. (or alphabetico in Romance langs.) + -AL 1.]

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  1.  Of, pertaining to, or in order of the alphabet.

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1567.  Maplet, Greene Forest, 56 b. All the whole kind of bruite Beastes … with the Alphabetical order.

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1577.  trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 253. That Alphabeticall Psalme … the hundred and nineteenth.

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1622.  Malynes, Anc. Law-Merch., 341. I made an alphabetical register of them.

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1703.  Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 109. Alphabetical Table of Terms.

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1837.  Whewell, Induct. Sc., XVI. iii. § 1. Arabian writers … adopting an alphabetical arrangement [of plants].

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  † 2.  fig. Literal, strict. Obs. rare.

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1643.  Milton, Divorce, I. xiv. An alphabetical servility.

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  3.  = ALPHABETIC 2.

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1806.  Adm. Off. Rep., 19 Aug., 22. The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty gave a decided preference to the alphabetical mode [of telegraphing].

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1848.  A. J. Ellis, Fonetics, 106. The history of alphabetical writing would lead us to conclude this.

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