initialism
/ɪˈnɪʃəlɪzəm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.74 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A term formed from the initial letters of several words or parts of words, which is itself pronounced letter by letter.
Example Sentences
- "The term BBC is an initialism for the British Broadcasting Corporation."
- "The next most frequent source language was English, with neologistic compounds accounting for 15 etymologies, with 9 other English-based terms from a variety of word formation processes such as initialism and semantic extension."
Etymology
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.