anacronym

noun
/əˈnæk.ɹə.nɪm/

Etymology

Perhaps blend of anachronism + acronym but perhaps an- + acronym, in either case indicating an acronymic word that has lost much of its acronymic identity because people usually no longer focus on the etymonic origin when using the word.

  1. derived from ἄκρον
  2. borrowed from Akronym
  3. compounded as anacronym — “anachronism + acronym

Definitions

  1. An acronym that is usually no longer thought of as such, but instead treated as a regular…

    An acronym that is usually no longer thought of as such, but instead treated as a regular word and styled in lower case despite its etymological origin.

    • When you write about using a waterproof laser pointer while scuba diving, you probably aren’t going to write about “a L.A.S.E.R. pointer for S.C.U.B.A. diving”, because the words laser and scuba are anacronyms.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for anacronym. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA