Link Centre Dictionary

acronym

ac·ro·nym

UK/ˈɛkɹənəm/ US/ˈækɹənɪm/ uncommon

noun

1.

a word formed from the initial letters of a multi-word name

Origin

Borrowed from German Akronym (from Ancient Greek ἄκρον (ákron, “end; peak”) + ὄνυμα (ónuma, “name”)), modelled after Homonym and Synonym, first attested in German in the early 1900s and in English in 1940. By surface analysis, acro- (prefix meaning ‘beginning; high’) + -onym (suffix meaning ‘name’)

Phrases

  • nested acronym
  • orphan acronym
  • recursive acronym
  • redundant acronym syndrome

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.