ACROSTIC • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Acrostic

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noun

Acrostic n.

A composition, usually in verse, in which the first or the last letters of the lines, or certain other letters, taken in order, form a name, word, phrase, or motto.

A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian.

Double acrostic, a species of enigma, in which words are to be guessed whose initial and final letters form other words.

Acrostical, Acrostic n. Pertaining to, or characterized by, acrostics.

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Etymology of 'Acrostic'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Acrostic" Quotes from Famous Books

... encouragement in an acrostic which some ingenious journalist has constructed out of the names of the Commanders-in-Chief of the French and British armies. ...

— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood

... many distinguished exiles came to this new-country home, and among those who found their way to Otsego Hall was the Marquis de Talleyrand, who was pleased to write an acrostic on Miss Cooper, then seventeen. The famous Frenchman's record, in part, of this visit was "Otsego n'est pas gai." Compared to the France of Talleyrand's day this record was true. The Otsego Herald's motto of ...

— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... Rectification of the subject (man) taken up by the Art, is achieved through the purification of the earthly elements according to the indication of the alchemists who call the beginning of the work "Vitriol," and form an acrostic from the initial letters of this word: "Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem" [ Visit the interior of the earth; by purifying you will find the hidden stone]. Half way up there floats the [Symbol: mercury] that has the value of a "union ...

— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... about him. Nearly every ship that sailed for Boston brought a letter from him to the Franklin family, and almost every letter contained a piece of poetry from his pen. One of his letters about that time contained the following acrostic on Benjamin's name: ...

— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... thing was extraordinarily queer, and that there must be some explanation of it; but Murray, after being quiet for a minute, began to fidget like a man who has been puzzling over an acrostic, and is beginning to discover what it is all about. My people used to do acrostics, and, when they were completely defeated, I did not mind being in the same room with them; but, as soon as they ...

— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... Baconians have repeatedly asserted that they had found in the First Folio acrostic signatures of Bacon's name; that one could spell Bacon or Francis Bacon by picking out letters in the text according to certain rules. But unfortunately either these acrostics do not work out, or else ...

— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... that he wrote many letters about him. Nearly every ship that sailed for Boston brought a letter from him to the Franklin family, and almost every letter contained a piece of poetry from his pen. One of his letters about that time contained the following acrostic on Benjamin's name: ...

— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... is a short poem in which the first letters of each line, read collectively, form a name, word, or sentence. The word comes from the Greek akros, extreme, and stichos, order or line. The acrostic was formerly in vogue for valentine and love verses. When employed as a riddle it is ...

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous