Meaning

A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message..

Definitions by Sense

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.
5. Of or pertaining to acrostics.

Example Sentences

He [Judas Maccabeus] was termed Mackabæus, becauſe he carried in his ſtandard, or vexillum militare, theſe four Hebrew letters, Mem, Chaph, Beth, and Jod, or M. C. B. and J. whereunto their points being added, which are their vowells, (for others they have none) his mott was Mackabai, whereof he took his name. Theſe four letters are the acroſtickes or initiall letters of theſe four wordes in the fifteenth chapter of the book of Exodus, Mi Chamocha Baalim Jehovah, which is in Latin Quis ſicut tu Deorum Jehova? ["Who among the gods is like you, O Adonai?", Exodus 15:11.]

I have written an acroſticke ſonet to his Maieſtie, a canzonet to the Queene, and another acroſticke unto the Prince; whoſe ſervant I am by vow, and ſubordinate ſubject by birth.

[L]et him that is melancholy […] apply his minde I ſay to Heraldry, Antiquity, invent Impreſſes, Emblemes; make Epithalamiums, Epitaphs, Elegies, Epigrams, Palindrona Epigrammata, Anagrams, Chronograms, Acroſticks, upon his friends names; […]

And afterwards gives as many reaſons for it, as there are letters in Hibernaculum Ciconiarum, and that too in the Acrostick way, each ſentence beginning with a letter of thoſe words, according to their order.

There is a most crying dullness on both sides. I have seen tory acrostics and whig anagrams, and do not quarrel with either of them, because they are whigs or tories, but because they are anagrams and acrostics.

But ſhould this Method fail, recourſe might be had to others more effectual, by Learned Men called Acroſticks and Anagrams. Firſt, might be found Men of Skill and Penetration who can diſcern that all initial Letters have political Meanings.

Word Forms

• acrostics
• acrostick
• acrosticke
• more acrostic
• most acrostic

Synonyms for acrostic

Related Words

When Should You Use Acrostic?

Use acrostic when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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