Word.ws English Dictionary

orphan initialism

orphan initialism noun: an existing initialism which has been redefined as a nonacronymous name, severing its link to its previous meaning.

Noun

orphan initialism (plural orphan initialisms)

  1. An existing initialism which has been redefined as a nonacronymous name, severing its link to its previous meaning.

Forms of orphan initialism

pluralorphan initialisms

Origin of orphan initialism

From orphan + initialism. Coined by Dan Puckett in the stylebook of the St. Petersburg Times in mid 2015.

Questions about orphan initialism

What does orphan initialism mean?
Orphan initialism means an existing initialism which has been redefined as a nonacronymous name, severing its link to its previous meaning.
What part of speech is orphan initialism?
Orphan initialism is a noun.
What is the plural of orphan initialism?
The plural of orphan initialism is orphan initialisms.

Words near orphan initialism in the dictionary

  1. orphan diseases
  2. orphan drug
  3. orphan drugs
  4. orphan house
  5. orphan houses
  6. orphan initialism
  7. orphan initialisms
  8. orphan John
  9. orphan medicine
  10. orphan medicines
  11. orphan off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: orphan initialism (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: “orphan initialism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orphan_initialism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.