ah

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• Malaysia, Singapore: /ɑ(ː)/
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• Malaysia, Singapore: [ä(ː)~ɐ(ː)]
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• /æ/
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• CMU ARPABET: AA1 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
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From Middle English ah, aa, a (“ah”), of imitative origin, or from Old English ēa, *eah (“oh, alas”), from Proto-West Germanic *a, *ah (“ah”). Earliest recorded use is circa 1175 in the Ormulum: A, Maȝȝstre! icc wat tatt tu full wiss Arrt Godess Sune ("Ah, Master! I know for sure that thou art God's Son"). Some propose that the Middle English is borrowed from Old French a (“ah!, oh!, hey!”) (represented by modern French ah). Compare also West Frisian a, ah (“ah”), Dutch a, ah (“ah”), Middle Low German a (“ah”), Old High German a, aa, ah (“ah, oh”) (whence modern German ah), Faroese áh (“oh, ah, alas”), Icelandic æ, ai (“ah, oh”), Latin ah (“ah”).

From Hokkien 啊 (--a, a) and Teochew 啊 (a7), reinforced by Tamil -ஆ (-ā, etymology 3, particle sense 1) among Tamil speakers (Baskaran, 1988).

Imitative of a person gagging.

Borrowed from Chinese 阿. Compare Dutch -A-.

54 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Arabic: آه (ʔāh) — an expression
• Arabic: آه (āh) — an expression
• Arabic: أها (ʔahā) — an expression
• Chinese Mandarin: 哦 (ò) — an expression
• Chinook Jargon: wäh — an expression
• Danish: ah — an expression
• Dutch: ah — an expression
• Esperanto: ha — an expression
• Esperanto: ah — an expression
• Estonian: aa — an expression
• Estonian: ah — an expression
• Estonian: ee — an expression
• Estonian: oi — an expression
• Estonian: oo — an expression
• Finnish: aa — an expression
• French: ah — an expression
• Greek: α (a) — an expression
• Hindi: आह (āh) — an expression
• Hungarian: ah — an expression
• Ido: ah — an expression
• Irish: á — an expression
• Japanese: ああ (ā) — an expression
• Japanese: あ (a) — an expression
• Japanese: 嗚呼 (ā) — an expression
• Korean: 아 (a) — an expression
• Malay: ah — an expression
• Norwegian Bokmål: ah — an expression
• Pennsylvania German: a — an expression
• Persian: آها (âhâ) — an expression
• Polish: ach — an expression
• Polish: a — an expression
• Portuguese: ah — an expression
• Russian: а (a) — an expression
• Russian: ага́ (agá) — an expression
• Russian: о (o) — an expression
• Slovak: ach — an expression
• Swedish: ah — an expression
• Thai: อ้อ (ɔ̂ɔ) — an expression
• Vietnamese: à — an expression
• Welsh: a — an expression
• Estonian: ee — word to fill space
• Finnish: öö — word to fill space
• Greek: α (a) — word to fill space
• Greek: ω (o) — word to fill space
• Estonian: ah — word used for drama
• Greek: α (a) — word used for drama
• Hebrew: אבוי (avoy) — word used for drama
• Pennsylvania German: a — word used for drama
• Swedish: ack — word used for drama
• Chinese Cantonese: 阿 (aa3) — used in Chinese names
• Hakka Chinese: 阿 (â) — used in Chinese names
• Chinese: 阿 (zh-min-nan) — used in Chinese names
• Chinese Mandarin: 阿 (ā) — used in Chinese names
• Dutch: A — used in Chinese names