noun
Usage: usually capitalized L
: an alphabet that was adapted from the early form of the Etruscan alphabet for writing Latin, that had originally 20 or 21 letters but in the classical Latin period 23 and from the Medieval Latin period 26, and that has also come to be used often with minor modifications for writing numerous other languages including English so that it is now the most extensively used of all the world's alphabets — called also Roman alphabet