How do you put words in alphabetical order?

For a comprehensive list of the collation orders in various languages, see Collating sequence.
A collation system for multiple-character words is alphabetical order, based on the conventional order of letters in an alphabet or abjad (most of which have a single conventional order).

Each nth letter is compared with the nth letter of other words in the list, starting at the first letter of each word and advancing to the second, third, fourth, and so on, until the order is established.

The order of the Latin alphabet is

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

The principle behind extending alphabetical order to words (lexicographical order) is that all words in a list beginning with the same letter should be grouped together; within a grouping starting with a single letter, all words beginning with the same two letters shall be grouped together; and so on, maximizing the number of common initial letters between adjacent words. The ordering principle is applied at the point where the letters differ. For instance, in the sequence:

Astrolabe
Astronomy
Astrophysics