Abbreviation
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Initialisms are a form of abbreviation in which a phrase is abbreviated to the first letter of each word in the phrase; familiar examples include
- FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation
- CBS for Columbia Broadcasting System
- KJV for King James Version.
They are distinguished from acronyms in that initialisms are pronounced as individual letters, while acronyms are pronounced as if the letters spelled out a word (which they may in some cases do).