acronym

American  

[ak-ruh-nim] / ˈæk rə nɪm /

noun

1. a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words and pronounced as a separate word, as Wac from Women's Army Corps, OPEC from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or loran from long-range navigation.

2. initialism.

3. an acrostic.

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verb (used with object)

1. to make an acronym of.

   The committee's name has been acronymed MIKE.

acronym British  

/ ˈækrənɪm, əˈkrɒnɪməs /

noun

1. a pronounceable name made up of a series of initial letters or parts of words; for example, UNESCO for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

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acronym Cultural  

1. A word formed by combining the beginning letters of a name or phrase, as in WASP for w hite A nglo-S axon P rotestant, or by combining the initial syllables of a series of words, as in radar, which stands for ra dio de tecting a nd r anging.

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Grammar

See abbreviation.

Usage

What does acronym mean? An acronym is a word formed by abbreviating a phrase by combining certain letters of words in the phrase (often the first initial of each) into a single term.Common examples of acronyms include NASA (an acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and FOMO (a slang acronym for fear of missing out). The word scuba comes from an acronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.Although acronym is sometimes used generally to refer to any term formed from this kind of abbreviation, it typically refers to ones that can be pronounced as a word. This is sometimes contrasted with an initialism.What’s the difference between an acronym and an initialism?Initialism is sometimes used as a synonym for acronym, but most technically it refers to an abbreviation in which each initial is pronounced separately (instead of pronouncing them together as a single word, as in scuba or NASA). For example, FBI is an initialism of Federal Bureau of Investigation; TMI is an initialism of too much information.Acronyms are often associated with their use in certain fields that use a lot of technical terms, like science, tech, and the military. But they’re popular in all kinds of contexts since they’re an easy way to make long phrases much shorter.Example: STEM is an acronym that stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.”

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Acronyms are often less clumsy than the complete expressions they represent and are easier to write and remember.

Other Word Forms

• acronymic adjective
• acronymic; adjective
• acronymically adverb
• acronymous adjective

Etymology

Origin of acronym

First recorded in 1940–45; acr- + -onym

Example Sentences

Wall Street has left behind a winding trail of nicknames and acronyms that have long since gone out of style.

From The Wall Street Journal

The most frequently cited figures are from a group called Human Rights Activists in Iran, also known by the acronym for its news agency, HRANA.

From The Wall Street Journal

It took its acronym from its founding members Brazil, Russia, India and China - and when South Africa joined four years later an "s" was added to its name.

From BBC

The “GOAT” acronym typically stands for the “greatest of all time.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who no longer covers Tesla stock for the brokerage, focusing on AI and robotics, recently wrote about the “embodied AI ecosystem,” based on his acronym DREAMS.

From Barron's