Sigla

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪɡlə/

Definitions

1. A type of abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a series of words in a title or phrase
2. A concise representation using the first letters of words, particularly in academic or formal contexts
3. An abbreviation composed of letters deriving from the beginning of each word in a phrase, commonly used in scholarly writing

Etymology: "Sigla" comes to English as a learned borrowing from Late Latin "sigla," a plural form that medieval scribes used for abbreviations and shorthand symbols. The Late Latin word itself traces back to the Classical Latin "sigla," used for a kind of small marking or cipher, and the ancient usage points to a link with "signum," a sign or mark. The English word was taken directly from the Latin rather than passing through French, which is why its spelling and sound still look and feel scholarly. The concept is older than the name. Medieval manuscript copyists routinely shortened common words and phrases with a few letters and a stroke or curl, and those contractions were the sigla of the period. Modern English gives us the same idea in acronyms and initialisms such as "NATO" or "UNESCO," which build a short form from the first letters of a longer title. Scholars adopted "sigla" to describe such shorthand as a category, so the term covers both the medieval and the modern practice.

Synonyms: abbreviations, symbols, initials