Alpha

Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , which is the West Semitic word for "ox".

Where there is ambiguity, long and short alpha are sometimes written with a macron and breve today: Ᾱᾱ, Ᾰᾰ.

In the Attic–Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek, long alpha [aː] fronted to [ɛː] (eta).

In Attic, the shift did not take place after epsilon, iota, and rho (ε, ι, ρ; e, i, r).

[3] Privative a is the Ancient Greek prefix ἀ- or ἀν- a-, an-, added to words to negate them.

In aerodynamics, the letter is used as a symbol for the angle of attack of an aircraft and the word "alpha" is used as a synonym for this property.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter ɑ, which looks similar to the lower-case alpha, represents the open back unrounded vowel.

Therefore, Alpha, both as a symbol and term, is used to refer to the "first", or "primary", or "principal" (most significant) occurrence or status of a thing.