Backronyms

A backronym is created when one constructs a phrase that has as its acronym an existing short word. There are both official and generally serious, as well as unofficial and often humorous backronyms. When a backronym claims to be the origin of a word, it is often an example of false etymology; it is intended and understood as a joke.

A pure backronym occurs when a sequence of letters is commonly understood to stand for a phrase that in fact had no role in its original conception. An example is SOS, the international distress signal that was chosen because it was easy in Morse code, but which is often thought to stand for "save our ship", "save our souls". An older distress signal, CQD, also has a backronym: "come quick, distress (or danger)." Another example is the word "wiki", from the Hawaiian word meaning quick. Some people have suggested that wiki means "What I Know Is".

Some backronyms are back-formed by replacing one or more words in an acronym with another, when the original meaning is deemed obsolete or inaccurate. For example, DVD originally stood for "digital video disc"; when it was noted that DVDs can store any digital data - video or otherwise - the term "digital versatile disc" was substituted. (Because no agreement was reached about the various possibilities, DVD now officially stands for nothing.)