• (RP) IPA: /əˈkɹɒstɪk/
• (GA) IPA: /əˈkɹɔstɪk/
• (cot-caught, Canada) IPA: /əˈkɹɑstɪk/

acrostic (plural acrostics) (also attributively)

1. A poem or other text#Noun|text in which certain letter#Noun|letters, often the first in each line#Noun|line, spell#Verb|spell out a name#Noun|name or message#Noun|message. [from 16th c.]
   • 1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Exercise Rectified of Body and Minde”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed [by Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, OCLC 932915040 ↗, partition 2, section 2, member 4, page 282 ↗:

     [L]et him that is melancholy [...] apply his minde I ſay to Heraldry, Antiquity, invent Impreſſes, Emblemes; make Epithalamiums, Epitaphs, Elegies, Epigrams, Palindrona Epigrammata, Anagrams, Chronograms, Acroſticks, upon his friends names; [...]

   • There is a most crying dullness on both sides. I have seen tory acrostics and whig anagrams, and do not quarrel with either of them, because they are whigs or tories, but because they are anagrams and acrostics.

   • 1726 October 27, [Jonathan Swift], “A Further Account of the Academy. The Author Proposes Some Improvements which are Honourably Received.”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: Printed for Benj[amin] Motte, […], OCLC 995220039 ↗, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 92 ↗:

     But ſhould this Method fail, recourſe might be had to others more effectual, by Learned Men called Acroſticks and Anagrams. Firſt, might be found Men of Skill and Penetration who can diſcern that all initial Letters have political Meanings.

   • 1929 November, Robert Graves, chapter VIII, in Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape […], OCLC 5076208 ↗, page 83 ↗:

     Both poems, which were signed with pseudonyms, were acrostics, the initial letters spelling out a 'case.' 'Case' meant 'romance,' a formal coupling of two boys' names, with the name of the elder boy first. [...] But nothing much would have come of it had not another of the sixth-form members of the Poetry Society been in love with one of the smaller boys whose names appeared in the acrostics. In rage and jealousy he went to the headmaster and called his attention to the acrostic – which otherwise neither he nor any other of the masters would have noticed.

2. A poem in Hebrew#Noun|Hebrew in which successive lines or verses start#Verb|start with consecutive letters of the alphabet.
3. A kind of word#Noun|word puzzle#Noun|puzzle, the solution of which form#Verb|forms an anagram of a quotation, and their initial#Noun|initials often forming the name of its author#Noun|author.

• French: acrostiche
• German: Akrostichon
• Italian: acrostico
• Portuguese: acróstico
• Russian: акрости́х
• Spanish: acróstico