Words & WritingGreek → English
Acronym
/ˈækrənɪm/noun
A word formed from the initial letters of a phrase.
The Greek roots
ἄκρος
ákros
topmost, at the tip
ὄνυμα
ónyma
name
Literally: “tip name”
The story of the word
The word is younger than most of the things it names, first recorded in American English in 1940 as wartime agencies multiplied faster than anyone could say them. Purists have argued ever since that a true acronym must be pronounceable as a word, radar and laser rather than FBI. ἄκρος also gives acropolis, the high city, and acrobat, one who walks on tiptoe.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1940
Same family
acrobatacropolissynonympseudonym
In a sentence
Nobody in the room could expand the acronym on the first slide.