The A.B.C. Murders

the Determiner

— Used, instead of a, to reference something specific, already known to exist. Compare "I read a book." and "I read the book." — Used with a stress, to show that the word following is special. Are you the John Smith that I went to school with? — Used with an adjective that acts like a noun to mean all of the people concerned The poor are always with us. — Used with superlatives forms of adjectives and adverbs. You are the best.

a Determinative

— A is used when the following word could be any of a certain type. Compare "A book I saw on the shelf" and "The book I gave you yesterday".

a Noun

— A is the first letter of the alphabet. The letter "a" comes before "b". — In some schools, an A is a very high grade. Ron got an A on his earth science test.

b Noun

— B is the second letter of the alphabet. "b" comes after "a" but before "c" — In some schools, a B is a fairly high grade. Charles got a B in his maths test.

c Noun

— C is the third letter of the alphabet. "b" comes before "c" — In some schools, an C is the passing grade. Albert only just passed the exam; he got a C.

murder Noun

— Murder is when one person plans to hurt or kill somebody and they kill somebody. Police are looking into two murders at a club in Brazzaville last night. A woman who lived in 1982 was walking into the woods, and was murdered by a man, who was into the woods, also, and her body was never found, so her family just had a memorial.

murder Verb

— To kill someone on purpose. He murdered two people in the bar.