Acronym

An acronym is a word whose letters are the first letters of other words. People often create a short acronym that means the same thing as a much longer phrase (set of words). This is faster and shorter to say than the long phrase.

Examples of acronyms are:

• COBOL - COmmon Business Oriented Language
• LASER - Light Amplification through Stimulated Emmission of Radiation
• QUANGO - Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation
• RADAR - RAdio Detecting And Ranging
• SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
• SCUBA - Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
• SNAFU - Situation Normal: All Fouled Up

An acronym usually must be able to be spoken as word. Other abbreviations such as ASAP^[1] (as soon as possible), USA^[2] (the United States of America), ECU^[3] (European Currency Unit), FBI^[4] (Federal Bureau of Investigation), NBA^[5] (National Basketball Association) have combinations of letters that are not pronounced as a single word. People just say the letters, one after another.

These three-letter acronyms,^[6] and some more obscure four-letter ones such as ISDN are more often called initialisms.

The word "acronym" comes from the Greek acro ‘extreme’ and onymus ‘name’.

1. ↑ "Asap definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
2. ↑ "USA definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
3. ↑ "ECU definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
4. ↑ "FBI definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
5. ↑ "NBA definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2019-05-05.
6. ↑ "Merriam Webster Dictionary online".