initialism

English

Etymology

initial +‎ -ism

Noun

initialism (plural initialisms)

1. (linguistics) A term formed from the initial letters of several words or parts of words, but which is itself pronounced letter by letter.

   BBC is an initialism for British Broadcasting Corporation.

Translations

term pronounced letter by letter

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 首字母縮略詞／首字母缩略词, 首字母缩略词 (shǒuzìmǔ suōlüècí)

• Danish: initialord, initialforkortelse
• Finnish: kirjainlyhenne, initialismi
• French: sigle (fr) m
• German: related: Initialwort (de) n, Akronym (de) n, Buchstabenwort (de)
• Greek: αρκτικόλεξο (el) n (arktikólexo)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Hungarian: betűszó (hu)
• Italian: sigla (it) f, abbreviatura (it) f, acronimo (it) m
• Norwegian: initialord (no) n
• Polish: literowiec m, skrótowiec literowy m
• Portuguese: sigla (pt) f
• Russian: инициальная аббревиатура (inicialʹnaja abbreviatura)
• Spanish: sigla (es)

See also

• abbreviation
• acronym
• TLA
• Category:English shortenings
• abecedism

Further reading

• initialism on Wikipedia.Wikipedia