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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.

Wiktionary

  1. n. An abbreviation formed by (usually initial) letters taken from a word or series of words, that is itself pronounced as a word, such as RAM, radar, or scuba; sometimes contrasted with initialism.
  2. n. A pronounceable word formed from the beginnings (letter or syllable) of other words and thus representing the phrase so formed, e.g. Benelux = the countries Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg considered as a political or economic whole.
  3. n. Any abbreviation so formed, regardless of pronunciation, such as TNT, IBM, or XML.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name

Etymologies

  1. acro- + -onym c. 1943 (Wiktionary)
  2. acr(o)- + -onym. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

Lists

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Comments

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  • hallettj My worst pet peeve when it comes to language is the use of the word acronym. I often hear it used to describe any kind of abbreviation - when its original usage actually refers to an abbreviation that itself is pronounced as a word.

    I realize that some of the dictionary definitions linked here give both definitions; and I grant that acronym is an awesome word, so I can understand why people would want to use it more often. But it makes me sad to hear the meaningful distinction between these two words disappear. Dec 9, 2006

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‘acronym’ has been looked up 3527 times, loved by 2 people, added to 31 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.