backronymn.
/ˈbakrənɪm/, U.S. /ˈbækrəˌnɪm/ An acronym formed from a phrase whose initial letters spell out a particular word or words, chosen to enhance memorability. Also: a contrived explanation of an existing word's origin, positing it as an acronym. Hence: the phrase used to form (or contrived to explain) such an acronym.
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1983 Washington Post 8 Nov. b8/3 A bacronym, says Meredith, is the ‘same as an acronym, except that the words were chosen to fit the letters’.
1999 Writer's Digest Dec. 43 Seasonal affective disorder (which yields the backronym SAD).
2000 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 14 Nov. (Internat. News section) 10 Other readers thought these might be ‘backronyms’ invented after the word was already in use.
2004 S. Rivkin & F. Sutherland Making Name i. 26 A bacronym that encodes meaning builds a marketing premise into it.
2006 Network World 7 Aug. 50/1 I wasn't enthusiastic when CAN SPAM (otherwise known as the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act, a laborious backronym if there ever was one) was made into law in 2003.
2012 Social Justice Oct. 112 Ned is falsely assumed to denote a ‘Non-Educated Delinquent’, a pejorative backronym that permits symbolic power to denigrate with impunity.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, June 2015; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1983