acronym

American  

[ak-ruh-nim] / ˈæk rə nɪm /

noun

• acronyms
  plural

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.

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verb (used with object)

1. to make an acronym of.

   The committee's name has been acronymed MIKE.

acronym British  

/ ˈækrənɪm /

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

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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.

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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.”

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Acronyms are often less clumsy than the complete expressions they represent and are easier to write and remember.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• acronymic
  adjective
• acronymic;
  adjective
• acronymous
  adjective
• acronymically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• acronyms
  plural

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

See Examples For:

acronym acronyms

The “SaaSpocalypse,” a play on the acronym for software as a service, became the watchword for the meltdown.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

“We had this acronym, IDIC. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations,” Takei previously told The Times.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026

"They liberated many Syrian cities and towns, first from the Baathist regime, then from the terrorism of Daesh," he continued, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026

The US military said this was "a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours", using an acronym for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

At college, Joy quickly fell in with the OASATAU, the very long acronym for a very young group, the Organization of African and African-American Students at the American University.

From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore

Remember, one of the acronyms for fear is “future experiences appearing real.”

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026

When Megg Gawat, a 32-year-old software engineer, got the results of his blood work last year, he was confused by some of the medical jargon and acronyms.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Known by acronyms that need no explanation, viruses like Covid, Sars and Ebola conjure up images of medics in protective suits and spark fear in populations worldwide.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

In one scene, a civilian asks Lieutenant Dane what the acronyms tattooed on both his hands stand for.

From Salon ● Jan. 25, 2026

"You may be a. little ahead of us on that one, Epiphany. I don't have either of those acronyms on my list. We’ll have to check with our advisory panel."

From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg