abecedarian

noun

1. Someone who is learning the alphabet.
2. An elementary student, a novice; one in the early steps of learning.

   “A man may alwaies continue his studie, but not schooling. O fond-foolish for an old man to be ever an Abcedarian [translating abecedaire].”

3. (archaic)Someone engaged in teaching the alphabet; an elementary teacher; one that teaches the methods and principles of learning.
4. (rhetoric)A work which uses words or lines in alphabetical order.

   “This formal organization is most likely to create obscurity in such elaborate and artificial forms as: palindromes (words, phrases, or verses which read the same backward or forward), abecedarians (poems in which the initial letters of lines or stanzas are arranged to[…])[…].”

   “Abecedarian verses are chanted stichoi/stichera verses in which the first letter of each verse follows an alphabetical order.[…]The Amomos, an abecedarian, is the longest psalm in the Psalter[…].”

   “An Abecedarian is any poem constrained by alphabetical order.”

5. (historical)A member of a 16th-century Anabaptist sect, follower of the Zwickau prophets (and specially of Thomas Storch), who believed that any kind of knowledge (even basic reading and writing) would keep one from obtaining salvation.

   “Behind the stable doors, where competitors frenziedly shine tack and polish hooves, Donna McNulty busies herself with her horse, Abecedarian.”

   “Heckman has been analyzing data from two famous early-childhood intervention programs, the Abecedarian Project of the ’70s and the Perry Preschool project of the ’60s. Both have furnished ample evidence that, if you enroll very young children from poor families in programs that give both them and their parents an extra boost, then they grow up to be wealthier and healthier than their counterparts—less fat, less sick, better educated, and, for men, more likely to hold down a job.”

adj

1. (archaic)Pertaining to someone learning the alphabet or basic studies; elementary; rudimentary.
2. Pertaining to the alphabet, or several alphabets.

   “The professor [...] had several other translations or feats of antiquarian deciphering to his credit. Indeed, I was extremely fortunate to find him in at the museum, for he planned to fly within the week to Peru where yet another task awaited his abecedarian talents.”

3. Arranged in an alphabetical manner.
4. Relating to or resembling an abecedarius.