What is the acronym, abbreviation and initialism?

The short form of a word, name or a phrase is called an abbreviation and an acronym. Generally, they are formed from the first letter of the basic word. Abbreviation may be any type of shortened form, such as words with the middle omitted (for example, Rd for road or Dr for Doctor); abbreviation is pronounced as a separate letter. For example: BBC; British Broadcasting Corporation. It is spoken as B, B, C letter by letter. Similarly, I.Q. abbreviated as intelligent quotient and pronounced letter I and letter Q. abbreviation contains periods in between for example I.D, Mr., I.Q etc.

An abbreviation UK stands for United Kingdom, which is just the description of the old word only. Therefore, one can say that all acronyms can be abbreviations, but all abbreviations cannot be acronyms.

An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components of a phrase or a word, usually individual letters, as in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

There are no universal standards for the multiple names for such abbreviations or for their orthographic styling. In English and most other languages, such abbreviations historically had limited use, but they became much more common in the 20th century. Acronyms result from a word formation process known as blending, in which parts of two or more words are combined to form a new word.

An acronym is a word formed from the first letter or first few letters of each word in a phrase (such as sonar, created from sound navigation and ranging).

Acronym is a form of new word. For example: UNESCO, Laser, Radar are some of the acronyms. An acronym Radar means Radio detection and ranging. This is totally a new description of the original word Radar. An acronym is formed from the first letters of a series of words. For example: AIDS; it is formed from the words Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Another difference between an abbreviation and acronym is that an acronym is pronounced as a word. For example: NATO, it is formed from the word North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but is pronounced as a new word 

Acronym has no periods in between, it is a short description. Acronym consists of words giving concepts or catchy phrases. For example, dept. is the short form of department whereas TEAM denotes together everyone achieves more. An acronym is a combination of different letters denoting different words .Acronyms can be of several types such as letter type; example laser, syllable type; example sysadmin and a hybrid of two; example Wasp.

Acronyms, of course, are abbreviations where the abbreviation is formed from letters of other words (usually the first letter of each word, though not always).  The part of the definition of acronym that many people miss is that the resulting abbreviation needs to be pronounceable as a word.  Examples of this would be things like RAM (Random Access Memory); LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation); NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries).

"Acronym" is a blanket term that can also encompass initialisms. An initialism is also a phrase indicated by abbreviating the first letter of each word in it, but it is unpronounceable as a unique word. Instead, initialisms are pronounced by saying each letter of the word individually. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is shortened to FBI, but this is always pronounced by saying each letter separately.

Both acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations, but there is a key difference between the two

Initialisms are very similar to acronyms in that they are made up of letters of some name or phrase, usually the first letter of each word as is common with acronyms.  The difference between an acronym and initialism is that the abbreviation formed with initialisms is not pronounced as a word; rather you say the individual letters, such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and DVD (Digital Video Disk).

Another thing about acronyms and initialisms that often causes confusion is whether or not one should place periods after each letter in order to be grammatically correct. Some grammar guides do advise doing so, but just as many say you should not, usually arguing that to add the periods can sometimes make things look messier and it’s already clear by the all-capitals that it’s an abbreviation, so the periods are pointless *snicker*. So really, it’s whatever you prefer as to whether to put periods after the letters of acronyms and initialisms or not.  The important thing is just to be consistent throughout your writing.

And, of course, if it’s just a shortened form of a word, like “ex.” for “example”, then it’s neither an acronym nor an initialism, rather just an abbreviation.

Summary: 

1. an acronym is a short form of a word, name or phrase formed from the first letters of the series of words.

2. An abbreviation is also a condensed form of a word and an articulated form of the original word.

3. An acronym is pronounced as a new word signifying some concept.

4. An abbreviation is pronounced as the original word letter by letter.

Samples of acronym:

HOSPITAL
House of Sick People Including Treatment and Labor

EAT
Energy and Taste

COMPUTER
Common Operating Machine Particularly Used for Technical, Education and Research

WINDOWS
Wide Interactive Network Development for Office Work Solution

NEWSPAPER
North East West South Paper Past And Present Event Reports

NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

YAHOO
Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

BYE
Be With You Every time

AIM
Ambition In Mind

SMILE
Sweet Memories in Lips Expression

PEN
Power Enriched In Nib
  

Samples of abbreviation:

UN
United Nations

EU
European Union

WHO
World Health Organisation

AM
Ante Meridiem

PM
Post Meridiem

OK
Objection Killed

SEO
Search Engine Optimization

Lt.
Lieutenant

Ltd.
Limited

HR
Human Resources

CV
Curriculum vitae

ETC.
et cetera

SQL
Structured Query Language

QS
Quality Assurance

H.S
Hotspot

TEA
Taste and Energy Admitted

OTG
On- The- Go

CEO
Chief Executive Officer

SOS
Save Our Souls

CFO
Chief Financial Officer

DOB
Date Of Birth

FIR
First Information Report

DELL
Development Of Early Language Learning

KG
Kilogram(s)

DLL
Dynamic - Link Library

HP
Hewlett - Packard Development Company

ISO
International Organisation for standardization

DIR
Directory

RIP
Rest In Peace

KM
Kilometre(s)

IBM
International Business Machines Corporation

FYI
For Your Information

FORTRAN
Formular Translator

ETA
Estimated Time of Arrival

COBOL
Common Basic Oriented Language

CMD
Command

CTA
Call To Action

ATM
Automated Teller machine

MPH
Miles Per Hour