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acronym

Pronunciation: /ˈækɹənɪm/

The English word “acronym” has 4 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Generally such abbreviations, including those pronounced as individual letters (initialisms such as "TNT").
  2. Exclusively such abbreviations when pronounced as a word (as "laser" or "NATO").
  3. An abbreviation formed by the beginning letters or syllables of other words; this sense includes syllabic abbreviations such as Benelux and satnav.

verb

  1. To form into an acronym.

Etymology

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’)

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.