A Was an Apple Pie Lyrics
A was an apple pie, B bit it, C cut it, and so on down the alphabet until X, Y and Z all want a piece. This alphabet rhyme is so old that a writer mentioned it in 1671.
A Was an Apple Pie
A was an apple-pie;
B bit it;
C cut it;
D dealt it;
E eat it;
F fought for it;
G got it;
H had it;
J joined it;
K kept it;
L longed for it;
M mourned for it;
N nodded at it;
O opened it;
P peeped in it;
Q quartered it;
R ran for it;
S stole it;
T took it;
V viewed it;
W wanted it;
X, Y, Z, and amperse-and,
All wish'd for a piece in hand.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/a-was-an-apple-pie/
- Type
- Mother Goose, Counting Rhymes
- First published
- 1671 (mentioned)
- Tune
- Spoken rhyme
- Best for ages
- 3 to 7 years
What Does A Was an Apple Pie Mean?
Each letter of the alphabet does something to the pie, and every verb starts with that letter: bit, cut, dealt, eat, fought and so on. It is a playful way to practice letter sounds.
You may notice that I and U are missing. In older English alphabets, I and J were treated as one letter, and so were U and V, so the old rhyme simply skips them.
History and Origin
The rhyme is one of the oldest alphabet rhymes in English. The writer John Eachard referred to "A apple pie, B bit it, C cut it" in a book published in 1671, and the full version appears in James Orchard Halliwell's collections of the 1840s. Later illustrators, including Kate Greenaway, made picture books of it.
Learning Activities
- Fill the gaps: add the missing letters I and U with your own verbs, like "I iced it" and "U unwrapped it".
- Act the verbs: say a letter and act out what it did to the pie.
- Make a pie: draw a big pie and let each family member "take" a letter slice.