The abbreviation, which also appears as AKA and a.k.a., is often used figuratively and facetiously: “my cousin, aka the worst gossip in the neighborhood.”
First recorded in 1945–50
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
My car took the long way to get to Las Vegas Boulevard, aka The Strip, and speed bumps made that stretch, well, bumpy.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 29, 2026
Two-thirds of the $3.3 billion StepStone Private Venture and Growth Fund, aka SPRING, are these secondhand investments.
From Barron's • May 20, 2026
Join MarketWatch for a live talk and Q&A with Haley Sacks, aka Mrs. Dow Jones, on how money stress shows up in your life and what to do about it.
From MarketWatch • May 19, 2026
Look Mum No Computer, aka musician Sam Battle, got one solitary point, ending up in last place.
From BBC • May 17, 2026
Which isn’t insurmountable, aka “impossible to overcome,” a vocab word we learned in Mr. Bonner’s class this week.
From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
