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recursive acronym

recursive acronym noun: an acronym in which a word (often the first) of the phrase represented by the acronym is the acronym itself.

Noun

recursive acronym (plural recursive acronyms)

  1. An acronym in which a word (often the first) of the phrase represented by the acronym is the acronym itself.
    • I used the odd variable name “tato”, mentioning that it is a recursive acronym standing for “tato (and tato only)”. Using this fact you can expand “tato” any number of times.1983 April, Douglas R. Hofstadter, “Metamagical Themas”, in Scientific American, →ISSN, page 20

Forms of recursive acronym

pluralrecursive acronyms

Origin of recursive acronym

From recursive + acronym, originating in early hacker culture and later popularized by Douglas Hofstadter.

Words that rhyme with recursive acronym

Questions about recursive acronym

What does recursive acronym mean?
Recursive acronym means an acronym in which a word (often the first) of the phrase represented by the acronym is the acronym itself.
What part of speech is recursive acronym?
Recursive acronym is a noun.
What is the plural of recursive acronym?
The plural of recursive acronym is recursive acronyms.

Words near recursive acronym in the dictionary

  1. recursing
  2. recursion
  3. recursion theory
  4. recursions
  5. recursive
  6. recursive acronym
  7. recursive acronyms
  8. recursive compound word
  9. recursive compound words
  10. recursive definition
  11. recursive definitions

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: recursive acronym (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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