Word.ws English Dictionary

initialese

initialese noun: language that is rendered confusing by many initialisms.

Noun

initialese (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Language that is rendered confusing by many initialisms.
    • Let me assure you, sir, that I will, in the interests of APANUA, continue the ceaseless fight against senseless acronymity, initialese, indecipherable abbreviation.1965, Design news, volume 20, numbers 10-17

Origin of initialese

From initial + -ese.

Questions about initialese

What does initialese mean?
Initialese means language that is rendered confusing by many initialisms.
What part of speech is initialese?
Initialese is a noun.

Words near initialese in the dictionary

  1. initial-value problem
  2. initial-value problems
  3. initialed
  4. initialer
  5. initialers
  6. initialese
  7. initialing
  8. initialings
  9. initialisation
  10. initialisations
  11. initialise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: initialese (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “initialese.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/initialese. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.