Words & WritingGreek → English
Acrostic
/əˈkrɔːstɪk/noun
A poem or puzzle in which the first letters of successive lines spell a word.
The Greek roots
ἄκρος
ákros
topmost, at the tip
στίχος
stíkhos
row, line of verse
Literally: “at the tip of the line”
The story of the word
στίχος is a rank of soldiers before it is a line of verse, and ἄκρος marks the tip, so an acrostic is a message hidden at the head of the column. The Sibylline oracles used the form, and early Christians read the Greek word for fish, ΙΧΘΥΣ, as an acrostic of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, which is why the fish became a sign. English acquired the term in the 1580s, when hiding a patron's name down the margin of a dedication was ordinary practice.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1580s
Same family
acropolisacrobatacronymhemistichdistich
In a sentence
The last stanza is an acrostic, and it spells out the name of the town he grew up in.