(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.
(n.) A Hebrew poem in which the lines or stanzas begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order (as Psalm cxix.). See Abecedarian.
(n.) Alt. of Acrostical
Example Sentences:
(1) Mr Elton's flourishing of "Augusta" is made the more repellent by Mrs Elton's mock-coy revelation that he wrote an acrostic on her name while courting her in Bath.
(2) With these factors in mind, health educators may set them out as an acrostic, based on the 1st letters of a slogan which could be taught to attendants: A Child Needs Personal Love With Which To Enjoy Protein.
(3) Top Gear's James May was once sacked by Autocar for working an acrostic (a message spelled out in the initial letters of each line) into a special supplement, which explained how editing the pull-out was a "real pain in the arse".
(4) Campaign strategies this time around have included an acrostic poem attacking a local Fairfax Regional paper, the Mandurah Mail, for being “Malicious Asshole Nutcases Dickheads” (it goes on, but we won’t).
Initial
Definition:
(a.) Of or pertaining to the beginning; marking the commencement; incipient; commencing; as, the initial symptoms of a disease.
(a.) Placed at the beginning; standing at the head, as of a list or series; as, the initial letters of a name.
(n.) The first letter of a word or a name.
(v. t.) To put an initial to; to mark with an initial of initials.
Example Sentences:
(1) He added: "There is a rigorous review process of applications submitted by the executive branch, spearheaded initially by five judicial branch lawyers who are national security experts and then by the judges, to ensure that the court's authorizations comport with what the applicable statutes authorize."
(2) In January 2011, the Nobel peace prize laureate was admitted to a Johannesburg hospital for what officials initially described as tests but what turned out to be an acute respiratory infection .
(3) Apparently, the irradiation with visible light of a low intensity creates an additional proton gradient and thus stimulates a new replication and division cycle in the population of cells whose membranes do not have delta pH necessary for the initiation of these processes.
(4) Treatment termination due to lack of efficacy or combined insufficient therapeutic response and toxicity proved to be influenced by the initial disease activity and by the rank order of prescription.
(5) Needle acupuncture did, however, increase the pain threshold compared with the initial value (alpha = 0.1%).
(6) Sixteen patients in whom schizophrenia was initially diagnosed and who were treated with fluphenazine enanthate or decanoate developed severe depression for a short period after the injection.
(7) Other haematological parameters remained normal, with the exception of the absolute number of lymphocytes, which initially fell sharply but soon returned to, and even exceeded, control levels.
(8) Errors in the initial direction of response were fewer in binocular viewing in comparison with monocular viewing.
(9) The results also indicate that small lesions initially noted only on CT scans of the chest in children with Wilms' tumor frequently represent metastatic tumor.
(10) An initial complex-soma inflection was observed on the rising phase of the action potential of some cells.
(11) In the past 6 years 26 patients underwent operation for recurrent duodenal ulcer after what was considered to be an "adequate" initial operation.
(12) Plain radiographs should be the initial screening modality for a suspected foreign body.
(13) In the 153 women to whom iron supplements were given during pregnancy, the initial fall in haemoglobin concentration was less, was arrested by 28 weeks gestation and then rose to a level equivalent to the booking level.
(14) The degree of increase in Meth responsiveness elicited by the initial provocation is a major factor in determining the airway response to a subsequent HS challenge.
(15) At low concentrations of TFIC there is a more or less direct relationship between the amount of the factor and the number of initiated complexes formed.
(16) During the 1st h after induction of the sporulation process, the rate of protein synthesis increased to two times the initial value.
(17) Benefits increase with an individual's initial cholesterol level and decrease with the age at which an intervention is initiated.
(18) Charge data from the target hospital showed a statistically significant reduction in laboratory charges per patient in the quarter following program initiation (P = 0.02) and no evidence for change in a group of five comparison hospitals.
(19) The most pronounced changes occurred during the initial hours of nutrient and energy deprivation.
(20) Damage to this innervation is often initiated by childbirth, but appears to progress during a period of many years so that the functional disorder usually presents in middle life.