Added 8 October 2026
acronym
/ˈækɹənɪm/ noun
First recorded: 1900 Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about acronym at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
-
A word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name and pronounced as one word.
`NATO' is an initialism for North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Origin
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’)
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)