acrostic

English

Alternative forms

• acrostick, acrosticke (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from French acrostiche, from Ancient Greek ἀκροστιχίς (akrostikhís), late 16th c.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈkɹɔstɪk/
• IPA^(key): /əˈkɹɑstɪk/
• IPA^(key): /əˈkɹɒstɪk/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒstɪk, -ɔːstɪk
• Hyphenation: acros‧tic

Noun

acrostic (plural acrostics)

1. A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message.
2. A particular kind of word puzzle: its solutions form an anagram of a quotation, and their initials often form its author.

Derived terms

• double acrostic
• triple acrostic

Descendants

• → Irish: acrastach

Translations

poem or text with certain letters spelling out a name or message

• Catalan: acròstic (ca) m
• Esperanto: akrostiĥo
• French: acrostiche (fr) m or f
• German: Akrostichon (de) n
• Greek: ακροστιχίδα (el) f (akrostichída)
• Hungarian: akrosztichon (hu)
• Icelandic: gripla f
• Interlingue:
• Irish: acrastaic f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: acrostico (it) m
• Portuguese: acróstico (pt) m
• Romanian: acrostih (ro) n
• Russian: акрости́х (ru) m (akrostíx)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: а̏кростих m

  Roman: ȁkrostih (sh) m

• Spanish: acróstico (es) m
• Swedish: akrostikon (sv) n

See also

• telesticon
• word square

Further reading

• acrostic on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• acrostic (puzzle) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Racicots, Ritaccos, Socratic, sarcotic