acrostic

Meanings

Noun

• A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message.
• A poem in Hebrew in which successive lines or verses start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
• A kind of word puzzle, the solution of which forms an anagram of a quotation, and their initials often form the name of its author.

Adjective

• Of or pertaining to acrostics.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• telestich
• word square

Origin

• Borrowed from Middle French acrostiche, acrostique (modern French acrostiche), and its etymon Late Latin acrostichis, from Ancient Greek ἀκροστιχίς, from ἄκρο- + στῐ́χος (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ-).