acrostic
pronunciation
How to pronounce acrostic in British English:
UK [əˈkrɒstɪk]
How to pronounce acrostic in American English:
US [əˈkrɔstɪk]
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- Noun:
- a puzzle where you fill a square grid with words reading the same down as across
- verse in which certain letters such as the first in each line form a word or message
Word Origin
- acrostic
- acrostic: [16] An acrostic is a piece of verse in which the first letters of each line when put together spell out a word. The term is of Greek origin (akrostikhis), and was formed from ákros ‘at the extremity’ (see ACROBAT) and stíkhos ‘line of verse’. The second element crops up in several other prosodic terms, such as distich and hemistich, and comes from the Greek verb steíkhein ‘go’, which is related ultimately to English stair, stile, and stirrup.=> acrobat, distich, hemistich, stair, stile, stirrup
- acrostic (n.)
- short poem in which the initial letters of the lines, taken in order, spell a word or phrase, 1580s, from Medieval Latin acrostichis, from Greek akrostikhis, from akros "at the end, outermost" (see acrid) + stikhos "line of verse," literally "row" (see stair).
Example
- 1. This is the only chapter that is not an acrostic .
- 2. The post-road assembles of the southwest silk road located in the present three provinces of southwest regions , were the floorboard of all acrostic official posts in the past dynasties .
- 3. The fifth is not acrostic .
- 4. But it still has twenty-two lines in conformity with the acrostic pattern of chapters 1-4 .
- 5. A character is like an acrostic or alexandrian stanza --- read it forward , backward , or cross , it still spells the same thing .