initialism

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree English initial Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō 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.

1. 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.”

2. The process of forming words or terms using initial letters of other words.

   “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.”