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.

---

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

---

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.

---

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.”

Discover More

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

Explanation

Are the members of your skydiving club tripping over the name Student Parachuting League & Aerial Team? Why not use each word's first letter to make an acronym, and call the club SPLAT? There, that’s better. What do NASA, sonar, and scuba have in common? They are all acronyms. Not only does each letter come from the first letter of another word, but each group of letters is easy to pronounce as its own word. Though its roots are classical (acro means "tip" and nym means "name"), acronym is fairly new as English words go: it's been around since the early 1940s.

Example Sentences

That institution comes in for specific criticism from Savouri who quips that the IMF acronym would be more accurate were it to represent the Invariably Mistaken Forecaster providing Grossly Distorted Projections.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 15, 2026

The gigantically long acronym is used by the Canadian government to highlight rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026

A flag draped on a balcony overlooking the rally read "Tisza is surging", a slogan of Magyar's party, referring to the river Tisza, the same as the party's acronym.

From Barron's • Apr. 10, 2026

The criteria for diagnosing myeloma are sometimes described using the acronym CRAB: Calcium elevation, Renal issues, Anemia, Bone problems.

From Slate • Mar. 29, 2026

Perhaps as an afterthought someone came up with another meaning for the acronym: “Rights, Justice, Freedom.”

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady