initialism.
A term formed from the initial letters of several words or parts of words, which is itself pronounced letter by letter.
Meaning & usage
A term formed from the initial letters of several words or parts of words, which is itself pronounced letter by letter.
The term BBC is an initialism for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The process of forming words or terms using initial letters of other words.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₁én Proto-Italic *en Proto-Italic *en- Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- Proto-Indo-European *h₁éyti Proto-Italic *ejō Proto-Italic *eō Proto-Italic *eneō Latin ineō Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -iusnom. Latin -ium Latin initium Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Latin -ālis Latin initiālislbor. Middle French initialbor. ▲ Latin initiālislbor. English initial Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íd͏̌d͏̌ō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English initialism From initial + -ism.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.