What is the difference between initialism and acronym?
initialism | acronym |
A term formed from the initial letter or letters of several words or parts of words, but which is itself pronounced letter by letter.
An abbreviation formed by (usually initial) letters taken from a word or series of words, that is itself pronounced as a word, such as RAM'', ''radar'', or ''scuba ; sometimes contrasted with initialism.
* 2014 , A teacher, "
A pronounceable word formed from the beginnings (letter or syllable) of other words and thus representing the phrase so formed, e.g. Benelux = the countries Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg considered as a political or economic whole.
Any abbreviation so formed, regardless of pronunciation, such as TNT, BBC, IBM'', or ''XML (see usage notes).
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author=(Timothy Garton Ash)
, volume=189, issue=6, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title=
Acronym is a see also of initialism.
As nouns the difference between initialism and acronym
is that initialism is a term formed from the initial letter or letters of several words or parts of words, but which is itself pronounced letter by letter while acronym is an abbreviation formed by (usually initial) letters taken from a word or series of words, that is itself pronounced as a word, such as ram'', ''radar'', or ''scuba ; sometimes contrasted with initialism.initialism
English
Noun
(wikipedia initialism) (en noun)- BBC is an initialism for British Broadcasting Corporation.
See also
* abbreviation * acronym * orphan initialism * TLA *acronym
English
(wikipedia acronym)Noun
(en noun)Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents", The Guardian , 23 September 2014:
- Some teachers festoon every spare inch of wall with vocabulary choices or maths techniques to use, which look great at first, but to some children might appear quite daunting. You'll probably see unfamiliar acronyms such as Walt (We Are Learning To). Be sure to ask what they stand for and how they are used in practice.
Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli, passage=Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.}}