acrostic

1. 1.

   a puzzle where you fill a square grid with words reading the same down as across

   Synonymsword square

   Broaderpuzzle
2. 2.

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

   Broaderliterary composition

Other forms of acrostic

plural

acrostics·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about acrostic

What does acrostic mean?

acrostic means "a puzzle where you fill a square grid with words reading the same down as across". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in acrostic?

acrostic has 3 syllables: a-cro-stic. The stress falls on "cro".

What is another word for acrostic?

Close synonyms include word square. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is acrostic a common word?

acrostic is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.