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B1 · Card 220 of 833

Acronyms and abbreviations: understand the difference

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Every acronym is an abbreviation, but not every abbreviation is an acronym. An acronym comes from initial letters and is said as one word; a general abbreviation may simply shorten a word, and an initialism is said letter by letter.

NATO is an acronym, Dr. is an abbreviation of Doctor, and BBC is an initialism.
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