Anacronym
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 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."
Example
More examples"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."
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.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.