Pronounced: SKER-uh-fie, verb
Notes: I didn’t know this word, and my guess that it was related to “scare” was wrong
Yesterday’s word
The word backronym refers to “a word re-interpreted an an acronym”
Background / Comments
The word is a blend of “back” + “acronym”. It is taking a word and pretending that it is actually an acronym for some made-up phrase. For example, one could claim that ‘acronym’ is itself an acronym for “A Contrived Result Of Nomenclature Yielding Mechanism”. I enjoy this kind of thing, but I usually begin with actual acronyms or alphabetisms and invent a new expansion.
First usage
Another more-or-less recent word; it showed up in the 1980s.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 