acrostic
acros·tic/əˈkɹɔstɪk/noun, adjective
acrostic is a noun meaning “A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-C-R-O-S-T-I-C and has 2 syllables (acros·tic), and it appears about once in every 8 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of acrostic is acrostics.
What does acrostic mean?
noun
- 1
A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message.
- 2
A poem in Hebrew in which successive lines or verses start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
- 3
A kind of word puzzle, whose solution forms an anagram of a quotation, with its initial letters often forming the name of the person quoted.
- 4
A kind of word puzzle in which a series of words are clued, and individual letters from the clued word spell out one or more additional words.
adjective
- 1
Of or pertaining to acrostics.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce acrostic?
- UK /əˈkɹɒstɪk/
- US /əˈkɹɔstɪk/
- /əˈkɹɑstɪk/
Acrostic has 2 syllables, split acros·tic in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-acrostic.oga, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Knabrupt-acrostic.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of acrostic
- acrostics plural
- acrostick
- acrosticke
- more acrostic comparative
- most acrostic superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is acrostic?
Acrostic appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 84,254th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Acrostic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense poem or text in which certain letters spell out a name or message:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | acrostiche |
| German | Akrostichon |
| Portuguese | acróstico |
| Spanish | acróstico |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does acrostic come from?
Borrowed from Middle French acrostiche, acrostique (“acrostic”) (modern French acrostiche), and its etymon Late Latin acrostichis, from Ancient Greek ἀκροστιχίς (akrostikhís), from ἄκρο- (ákro-, prefix indicating, among other things, the extremity or tip of something) + στῐ́χος (stĭ́khos, “row or file of soldiers; line of poetry, verse”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steygʰ- (“to climb, go”)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).