Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Mid-century: TV and science ·1943
Acronym
acro- -onym
- Meaning
- A word formed from the initial letters of a phrase.
- Source words
- acro- + -onym
- Coined by
- Bell Laboratories technical writers
- Year
- 1943
Background
From Greek *akron* (tip) + *onoma* (name). The word is itself a portmanteau coined to name a new class of 20th-century coinages — WWII produced so many letter-strings (radar, sonar, scuba) that a general term was needed.
Mid-century: TV and science
Two engines dominated: television (sitcom, televangelist) and post-war big science (pulsar, transistor). Many mid-century coinages came from scientific style sheets and industry journals.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.