acrostic

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
1. The lamentations of Jeremiah have the form of an acrostic, that is, the verses begin with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in regular order, the first with Aleph, the second with Beth, and so in succession.

View all »
Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A poem or series of lines in which certain letters, usually the first in each line, form a name, motto, or message when read in sequence.
  2. noun See word square.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • If this don't deserve an acrostic, I don't know—sense, beauty, modesty, and music. —  Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Volume 1.
  • Treating the computer message now as an acrostic, Dale could read it easily, jumping from first letter to first letter of each word Icicles by God. —  AWinterHaunting
  • And like the Sunday double acrostic, the Umami Burger is a puzzle demanding to be solved. —  LA Weekly | Complete Issue
  • Cloth. $1.50 As a novelty, the following acrostic is presented. —  Four Young Explorers or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics
  • Sweet sir, I will but pen the last line of an acrostic, and be with you in the twinkling of an ejaculation, in the pronouncing of an Amen, or before you can MASK. —  The Comedies of William Congreve Volume 1 [of 2]
More examples »
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 160 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French acrostiche, from Old French, from Greek akrostikhis : akron, head, end; see acromegaly + stikhos, line; see steigh- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. = French acrostiche = Spanish Portuguese Italian acrostico, from Greek ἀκ ροστίχιον, ἀκ ροστιχίς, an acrostic, from ἂκρος, at the end, + στίχος, row, order, line, from στείχειν (√ *στίχ), go, walk, march, go in line or order, = Anglo-Saxon stīgan, English sty, go up. The second element would properly be -stich, as in distich; it has been assimilated to the common suffix -ic.
  2. from across (crossed, crost), confused with, acrostic.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/əˈkrɑstɪk/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

ageing · chomp · streamlined · frontier · Hawn

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Glockenspiel · Ersatz · Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid · Haifischschwanzflossenfleischsuppe · Der Kottbusser Postkutscher putzt den Kottbusser Postkutschkasten