acronym

acronym — noun

1. a word created by taking the first letter (or first few letters) of each word in

1.名詞B1
釋義

a word created by taking the first letter (or first few letters) of each word in a longer phrase or name and pronouncing the result as a single word — for instance, "NATO" comes from "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" and is said as one word, not letter by letter.

例句

The committee chose the acronym ASEAN to stand for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

acronym + stand for + full expansion

Grace learned that the acronym RADAR comes from Radio Detection And Ranging.

同義詞
  • abbreviation

    broader category; includes acronyms, initialisms, and any shortened form

  • initialism

    a type of abbreviation where each letter is pronounced separately, e.g. DVD, CEO

  • short form

    general term for any condensed version of a name or phrase

反義詞
  • full name

    the complete, unabbreviated form of an organization or concept

  • expansion

    the full phrase that the acronym represents

文法句型

acronym + for + [full name]

用法筆記

Distinguish from initialisms such as FBI or CEO, where each letter is pronounced separately. Many casual English speakers use "acronym" for any short form made from initials, but careful writers reserve it for cases pronounced as a full word.

常見錯誤

FBI is an acronym for Federal Bureau of Investigation.
FBI is an initialism
💡each letter is said separately. NATO is an acronym because it is pronounced as one word.' — Acronyms are spoken as words, not as individual letters.