The Morse code alphabet gives each of the 26 English letters its own sequence of dots and dashes, from A (dot dash) to Z (dash dash dot dot). This chart lists every letter beside its code, so you can look up a single letter or scan the whole alphabet at once.
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The chart below is the whole alphabet in one table, so you can scan it or jump straight to a letter. Every row has its own anchor, and the codes are the international standard rather than the older American variant.
Further down, the same 26 letters are grouped two other ways: the pairs that are each other read backwards, and the buckets by code length. Both are shortcuts if you are memorising rather than looking up.
Numbers and punctuation are on their own chart, at Morse code numbers and punctuation. For a whole message rather than one letter, the translator does it in one pass.
Each row below links to itself, so #letter-j on the end of this page's address jumps straight to J. Read a code left to right: a dot is the short signal, a dash the long one.
| Character | Morse code |
|---|---|
| A | .- |
| B | -... |
| C | -.-. |
| D | -.. |
| E | . |
| F | ..-. |
| G | --. |
| H | .... |
| I | .. |
| J | .--- |
| K | -.- |
| L | .-.. |
| M | -- |
| N | -. |
| O | --- |
| P | .--. |
| Q | --.- |
| R | .-. |
| S | ... |
| T | - |
| U | ..- |
| V | ...- |
| W | .-- |
| X | -..- |
| Y | -.-- |
| Z | --.. |
To turn a whole message into these codes rather than one letter at a time, use the Morse code translator on the home page.
A .-B -...C -.-.D -..E .F ..-.G --.H ....I ..J .---K -.-L .-..M --N -.O ---P .--.Q --.-R .-.S ...T -U ..-V ...-W .--X -..-Y -.--Z --..
Six pairs of letters are the same code read backwards. Learning one of a pair gives you the other for nothing, which cuts the memorising work noticeably.
Two more letters are their own mirror image: S is three dots and O is three dashes, so both read the same in either direction.
No letter is longer than four symbols, and the codes are not handed out at random. Morse gave the shortest codes to the letters English uses most, which is why E and T need only one signal each and the rarest letters need four.
Grouping them this way is useful when you are decoding by ear rather than by eye. Counting the signals first narrows a letter down to one small group before you have to recall the exact pattern.
The Morse code alphabet has 26 letters, one for each letter of the English alphabet. Their codes are not all the same length. They run from a single symbol up to four, with the shortest codes given to the letters English uses most often.
The shortest letters in Morse code are E, a single dot, and T, a single dash. They are the only two letters with a one symbol code, which is why they are usually the first pair anyone learns and the first recognised by ear.
Morse code has no uppercase and no lowercase. There is one code per letter and no way to mark case, so HELLO and hello produce exactly the same dots and dashes. Case comes back only when a person reads the decoded text.
There is Morse code for numbers and punctuation. Every digit from 0 to 9 has its own five symbol code, and 16 punctuation marks and symbols have codes as well, including the full stop, the comma and the question mark.
Numbers and symbols use a separate table. See the Morse code numbers and punctuation chart. To memorise the alphabet rather than look it up, read how to learn Morse code.
