for Professor), an acronym is-in the broad sense-formed from the first letter or first few letters of each important word in a phrase (such as AIDS, from acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome, and scuba from self-contained underwater breathing apparatus).
Whereas an abbreviation may be any type of shortened form, such as words with the middle omitted (for example, Rd for Road or Dr for Doctor) or the end truncated (as in Prof. Citations in English date to a 1940 translation of a novel by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger. This neoclassical compound appears to have originated in German, with attestations for the German form Akronym appearing as early as 1921. The word acronym is formed from the Greek roots acr-, meaning "height, summit, or tip" and -onym, meaning "name". Dictionary and style-guide editors are not in universal agreement on the naming for such abbreviations, and it is a matter of some dispute whether the term acronym can be legitimately applied to abbreviations which are not pronounced "as words", nor do these language authorities agree on the correct use of spacing, casing, and punctuation.Ībbreviations formed from a string of initials and usually pronounced as individual letters are sometimes more specifically called initialisms or alphabetisms examples are FBI from Federal Bureau of Investigation, ABS-CBN from Alto Broadcasting System - Chronicle Broadcasting Network, GMA from Global Media Arts, NPC from National Power Corporation, NGCP from National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, and e.g. The broader sense of acronym-the meaning of which includes terms pronounced as letters-is sometimes criticized, but it is the term's original meaning and is in common use. Some are not universally pronounced one way or the other and it depends on the speaker's preference or the context in which it is being used, such as SQL (either "sequel" or "ess-cue-el"). They can also be a mixture, as in radar ( Radio Detection And Ranging) and MIDAS ( Missile Defense Alarm System).Īcronyms can be pronounced as words, like NASA and UNESCO as individual letters, like FBI, TNT, NPC, NGCP, and ATM or as both letters and words, like JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) and IUPAC. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty Organization), but sometimes use syllables, as in Benelux (short for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), NAPOCOR ( National Power Corporation), and TRANSCO ( National Transmission Corporation). For the use of acronyms on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Acronyms.Īn acronym is a word or name consisting of parts of the full name's words.
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