ACRONYM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does acronym mean? 

• ACRONYM (noun)
  The noun ACRONYM has 1 sense:

1. a word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name and pronounced as one word

  Familiarity information: ACRONYM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ACRONYM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name and pronounced as one word

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

acronym; initialism

Context example:

the word 'scuba' is an acronym for s(elf)-c(ontained) u(nderwater) b(reathing) a(pparatus)

Hypernyms ("acronym" is a kind of...):

descriptor; form; signifier; word form (the phonological or orthographic sound or appearance of a word that can be used to describe or identify something)

Domain member usage:

snafu (an acronym often used by soldiers in World War II: situation normal all fucked up)

MPEG (a set of standards adopted by the moving pictures experts group for the compression of digital video and audio data or a file of data compressed according to those standards)

DINK (a couple who both have careers and no children (an acronym for dual income no kids))

weakly interacting massive particle; WIMP (a hypothetical subatomic particle of large mass that interacts weakly with ordinary matter through gravitation; postulated as a constituent of the dark matter of the universe)

NIMBY (someone who objects to siting something in their own neighborhood but does not object to it being sited elsewhere; an acronym for not in my backyard)

Derivation:

acronymic; acronymous (characterized by the use of acronyms)

 Context examples 

LOD is an acronym for "logarithmic odds." (From MSH 2001)

(LOD Score, NCI Thesaurus)

The PC in the acronym PC-SPES stands for Prostate Cancer, while SPES is the Latin word for hope.

(PC-SPES, NCI Thesaurus)

An acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; an optical device that produces an intense monochromatic beam of coherent light.

(Laser, NCI Thesaurus)

An acronym for El Niño Southern Oscillation.

(ENSO, NOAA Paleoclimate Glossary)

As the acronym suggests, there are three amino acids between the N-terminal cysteine residues.

(Delta Chemokine, NCI Thesaurus)

The term CHARGE is an acronym for the following unusual congenital abnormalities that are associated with this syndrome: coloboma of the eye, heart defects, choanal atresia, growth and developmental retardation, genital, and ear abnormalities.

(CHARGE Syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)