Meaning of an | Babel Free

Definitions

1. airman, Navy
2. The form of a used before words beginning with a vowel sound: an elephant; an hour; an umbrella. See Usage Notes at a2, every.
   a
3. And if; if: "an it please your majesty / To hunt the panther and the hart with me" (Shakespeare).
4. the form of a 1 before an initial vowel sound(an arch; an honor) and sometimes, esp. in British English, before an initial unstressed syllable beginning with a silent or weakly pronounced h: an historian.
   an arch; an honor
5. the form of a2 before an initial vowel sound: 14 dollars an ounce; 55 miles an hour.
6. a prefix occurring orig. in loanwords from Greek, with the meanings “not,” “without,” “lacking” ( anaerobic; anhydrous; anonymous); regularly attached to words or stems beginning with a vowel or h.Compare a-6.
7. var. of ad- before n: announce.
8. var. of ana- before a vowel: anion.
9. a suffix with the general sense “of, pertaining to, having qualities of,” occurring orig. in adjectives borrowed from Latin and formed from nouns denoting places ( Roman; urban) or persons ( Augustan), now commonly forming adjectives and nouns denoting affiliation with a place or membership in a group (Chicagoan; crustacean; Episcopalian); attached to personal names, it may additionally mean “contemporary with” (Elizabethan) or “proponent of” (Freudian). Th...
   Chicagoan; crustacean; Episcopalian
10. a suffix used in the names of organic chemical compounds, esp. polysaccharides: pentosan; xanthan.

CEFR level