字母

• 拼音: zì mǔ
• 汉字拆解: 字 = 宀 (roof) + 子 (child), character or written symbol; 母 = pictograph of a woman with prominent breasts, mother

含义

Letter of an alphabet; alphabetic character. Refers to individual characters in any alphabetical writing system.

Commonly used to refer to letters of the Roman/Latin alphabet (英文字母) or the Chinese phonetic alphabet (拼音字母). Can also refer to letters in other scripts. 大写字母 means capital letters and 小写字母 means lowercase letters. Not used for Chinese characters (汉字).

例句

1. 她教孩子认识英文字母，从A一直教到Z。
2. 这个密码是由数字和字母混合组成的，很难猜到。
3. 拼音是用拉丁字母来标注汉语发音的一种方法。

用法指南

语境: education, language learning, technology

语气: neutral

正确说法

• 英文一共有二十六个字母。(The English alphabet has twenty-six letters in total.)
• 请用大写字母填写你的姓名。(Please write your name in capital letters.)

错误说法

• 用'字母'指汉字 (Don't use 字母 to refer to Chinese characters — use 汉字 instead)

起源与历史

Compound of 字 (character, written symbol) and 母 (mother). The 母 (mother) element suggests a foundational or primary unit — letters are the 'mothers' of words. This usage dates to classical Chinese.

文化背景

世代: All ages

社会背景: Universal