acronym

Definition 
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, there is a Russian acronym of 56 letters. Guinness also claims that the longest English acronym is the 22 letter ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC, used in the U.S. Navy to denote the Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet, Subordinate Command, U.S. Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, Commander Headquarters Support Activities—itself abbreviated as CSCN/CHSA. Strictly speaking, these are both acronyms, new words formed from the initial letters or syllables of successive words in a phrase. But acronym has come to mean any such word that can be easily pronounced as a word, and not even Demosthenes could pronounce these abbreviations designed to appeal to the eye rather than to the ear. The term acronym derives from the Greek akros ("top") and onym ("name"); it is a fairly new coinage, although scholars claim to have found early examples of acronyms in Hebrew writings dating back to biblical times. Acronyms came into prominence during World War I with coinages such as AWOL (absent without leave), proliferated during the New Deal with all its "alphabet agencies," and got entirely out of hand during World War II, as can be seen by the two monsters cited above. The good ones appeal to the American preference for brevity and wit in speech. New acronyms are invented every day, but relatively few stand the test of time. A number are apparently happy accidents, but in many cases the long form was invented so that the acronyms could be born. There is no good explanation for why common abbreviations such as G.O.P., F.O.B., and O.P.A. haven't become acronyms, except that they just don't sound right to most ears when pronounced as words. Unfortunately, there isn't room here for interesting place-name acronyms such as Pawn, Oregon, which wasn't named for a pawnshop but comes from the initials of four early residents named Poole, Aberley, Worthington, and Nolen. See abbreviations.