ACROSTIC • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]—read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I ...

— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... prediction about the advent of our Divine Lord and His final coming at the last day to judge the living and the dead.... The part of the sibyl's response which referred particularly to the Day of Judgment was written (as an acrostic) on the letters of Soter, or Saviour. It is given as follows in the translation of the "City of God" of ...

— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... Perhaps it was in honour of these legendary loaves that the acrostic of SAC BLE was composed from the six dioceses dependent on the archbishopric of Rouen; Seez, Alencon, Coutances, ...

— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... inside of the cover quite a long piece of poetry had been copied. It appeared to be something in the nature of an acrostic or charade, and ...

— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... papyrus. But we would probably have discovered that the leader of the worship had a book of prayers and hymns before him. He would read them, line by line, each Sabbath for the others to memorize. To make this task of memorization easier many of the Jewish hymns were written in acrostic form—that is, each line or stanza began with a different letter in the ...

— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting

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