What is "acrostic"

Acrostic \A*cros"tic\, Acrostical \A*cros"tic*al\, n. Pertaining to, or characterized by, acrostics.

Acrostic \A*cros"tic\, n. [Gr. ?; ? extreme + ? order, line, verse.]

1. 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.

2. 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 (crossword puzzle), in which words are to be guessed whose initial and final letters form other words.

short poem in which the initial letters of the lines, taken in order, spell a word or phrase, 1580s, from Medieval Latin acrostichis, from Greek akrostikhis, from akros "at the end, outermost" (see acrid) + stikhos "line of verse," literally "row" (see stair).

n. 1 A poem or other text in which certain letters, often the first in each line, spell out a name or message. 2 A particular kind of word puzzle: its solutions form an anagram of a quotation, and their initials often form its author.

1. n. a puzzle where you fill a square grid with words reading the same down as across [syn: word square]

2. verse in which certain letters such as the first in each line form a word or message

An acrostic is a poem (or other form of writing) in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The word comes from the French acrostiche from post-classical Latin acrostichis, from Koine Greek ἀκροστιχίς, from Ancient Greek ἄκρος "highest, topmost" and στίχος "verse"). As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval.

An acrostic is a type of word puzzle, related somewhat to crossword puzzles, that uses an acrostic form. It typically consists of two parts. The first part is a set of lettered clues, each of which has numbered blanks representing the letters of the answer. The second part is a long series of numbered blanks and spaces, representing a quotation or other text, into which the answers for the clues fit. In some forms of the puzzle, the first letters of each correct clue answer, read in order from clue A on down the list, will spell out the author of the quote and the title of the work it is taken from; this can be used as an additional solving aid.