Definition of "abisselfa"

abisselfa

noun
plural abisselfas
1. (obsolete, colloquial, US, education) The letter A when it stands alone within a word, not forming part of a diphthong, etc.
  Quotations
  It dawned upon me that abisselfa was an English translation of a-per-se-a, a-by-itself-a. So also e-by-itself-e became ebisselfe. Similarly ibisselfi, obisselfo, ubisselfu. This nomenclature was confined to the vowels as being the only letters that could stand by themselves.
  1891, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America