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# phoenician

«phoenician» in Mova's school dictionary: **Belonging to Phoenicia, an ancient land of trading cities…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (Phoenician); noun (a Phoenician, Phoenicians)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Belonging to Phoenicia, an ancient land of trading cities (like Tyre, Sidon and Byblos) on the coast of what is now Lebanon, about 1500–300 BC. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#m1)

2) A person from Phoenicia. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#m2)

3) The Phoenician alphabet was one of the first alphabets, with letters for sounds; Greek, Latin and our ABC came from it. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons on how writing began, the Phoenicians were great seafarers and traders who sailed the Mediterranean, founded Carthage and spread their alphabet; they also made a famous purple dye from sea snails. The Just So Stories tell a made-up tale of Taffy inventing letters; the real story goes through Egyptian signs, the Phoenician alphabet and the Greeks to the Romans.

### examples

- The Phoenicians sailed all over the Mediterranean. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x1)
- Our alphabet comes from the Phoenician alphabet. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x2)
- Phoenician traders sold purple dye and cedar wood. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x3)
- Carthage was a Phoenician city in North Africa. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x4)
- The Phoenician letter aleph became the Greek alpha and our A. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x5)
- Tyre was a rich Phoenician port. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/#x6)

### note

Write with a capital P. Sounds like «fo-NEE-shun» or «fuh-NISH-un». The Phoenician alphabet had only consonants; the Greeks added vowels.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «phoenician» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/phoenician/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.