The Collaborative International Dictionary
al- \al-\ prefix.
[AS. eal.] All; wholly; completely; as, almighty, almost.
[L. ad.] To; at; on; -- in OF. shortened to a-. See ad-.
The Arabic definite article answering to the English the; as, Alkoran, the Koran or the Book; alchemy, the chemistry. [1913 Webster] ||
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 pre. (qualifier: no longer productive) (alternative form of all- English) Etymology 2
pre. Variant of (term: ad-) used before the letter L.
Usage examples of "al-".
It was a long story, impossible to unravel, partly because the various Arab authors and protagonists had extremely long names, the texts were transcribed with a forest of diacritical marks, and as the evening wore on we could no longer distinguish between Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn 'AH ibn Razzam al-Ta I al-Kufi, Abu Muhammad 'Ubayd Allah, and Abu Mu'inl 'Abd Din Na-sir ibn Khusraw MarvazI Qubadiyanl.