Todays word: ACRONYM
- An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or a phrase.
- An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word.
- An initialism is an abbreviation that uses the first letter of each word in the phrase (thus, some but not all initialisms are acronyms).
Furthermore:
- An acronym so familiar that no one remembers what it stands for is called an anacronym (For example, few people know that COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language.)
- An acronym in which one of the letters stands for the actual word abbreviated therein is called a recursive acronym. (For example, VISA is said to stand for VISA International Service Association.)
- An acronym in which the short form was original and words made up to stand for it afterwards is called a backronym. (For example, SOS was originally chosen as a distress signal because it lent itself well to Morse code. Long versions, including Save Our Ship and Save our Souls, came later.)
- An acronym whose letters spell a word meaningful in the context of the term it stands for is called an apronym. (For example, BASIC, which stands for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, is a very simple programming language.)
ACRONYM
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1 year ago
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