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Comprehensive
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alert keenly attentive or responsive; quick to perceive. [3 definitions]
Aleut a member of a native people of the Aleutian Islands, or a descendant thereof; Aleutian. [2 definitions]
Aleutian of or pertaining to the Aleutian Islands or their people, culture, or the like. [2 definitions]
Aleutian Islands a chain of Alaskan islands that extends from the southwest coast toward Russia.
alewife1 a small fish, related to the herring and resembling the shad, found in North America in the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.
alewife2 a female alehouse keeper.
Alexander Graham Bell U.S. inventor of the telephone (b.1847--d.1922).
Alexander the Great the king of Macedonia in 336-323 B.C. and conqueror of an empire that included Persia, Egypt, and part of Greece (356-323 B.C.).
Alexandria an Egyptian seaport on the Nile delta, founded by Alexander the Great.
Alexandrian of or pertaining to Alexander the Great or the period of his reign. [2 definitions]
alexandrine (sometimes cap.) in poetry, a twelve-syllable line with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, usu. with a clear pause after six syllables. [2 definitions]
Alex Haley a U.S. author celebrated for his pulitzer prize-winning work of historical fiction, Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976), a publication whose subsequent television broadcast adaptation spawned a national discussion about race and race relations (b.1921--d.1992).
alexia the loss of reading ability, caused by lesions in the brain.
alfalfa a legume with purple flowers that is grown widely as forage for cattle and horses.
al fine to the finish (used as a musical direction to continue to the end of a repeated section).
Alfred Nobel a Swedish engineer, industrialist, and philanthropist who invented dynamite and established the Nobel prizes (b.1833--d.1896).
alfresco in the open air; outdoors. [2 definitions]
alga any of various primitive, chiefly aquatic plants that have no roots, stems, or leaves, including the seaweeds and diatoms.
algae organisms that live mainly in the water and make their food through photosynthesis. Algae are different from plants in that they have no true leaves, roots, or stems. Seaweeds are algae. "Algae" is a plural noun; the singular form is "alga."
algebra a form of elementary mathematics, used esp. in solving equations, in which letters stand for unknown or variable quantities. [2 definitions]
algebraic of, used in, or of the nature of algebra.