Dictionary
Al
Pronunciation: (al), [key]—
n.
a male given name: form of
Albert, Alfred, Aloysius. à l'
form of
à la used for either gender before a vowel or
h.al-
var. of
ad- before
l: allure.Al-
a word in Arabic names meaning “family” or “the house of ”:
Al-Saud, or the members of the house of Saud. -al
a suffix with the general sense “of the kind of, pertaining to, having the form or character of” that named by the stem, occurring in loanwords from Latin (
autumnal; natural; pastoral), and productive in English on the Latin model, usually with bases of Latin origin (
accidental; seasonal; tribal). Originally,
-al1 was restricted to stems not containing an -
l- (cf.
-ar1 ); recent lapses in this rule have produced semantically distinct pairs, as
familiar and
familial. Cf.
-ical, ial. -al
a suffix forming nouns from verbs, usually verbs of French or Latin origin:
denial; refusal.-al
Chem.a suffix indicating that a compound contains an aldehyde group:
chloral.AL
1. Alabama (approved esp. for use with zip code).
2. Anglo-Latin.
Al
—
Symbol, Chem.
aluminum.
AL.
Anglo-Latin.
al.
1. other things.
2. other persons.
A.L.
1. Baseball.American League.
2. American Legion.
3. Anglo-Latin.
a.l.
autograph letter.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
See also: - Al (Thesaurus)
- Al (Encyclopedia)
