acrophonicadj.

1844 Monthly Rev. Sept. 104 According to his acrophonic principle, hieroglyphical figures express such notions and ideas, which begin with the same letter as the name of the hieroglyphic itself.

1860 Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis 1 537 This hieroglyph alone, by its frequency, prevents all the followers of Champollion's unsound acrophonic system from translating whole Egyptian texts.

1932 Times Lit. Suppl. 7 Jan. 13/1 The Hittite pictographic script which he thought was acrophonic.

1959 A. G. Woodhead Study Greek Inscriptions 18 The Greek names for the letters of the alphabet are acrophonic, the first letter of the name expressing the sound of the letter to which the name is given.

1980 L. Threatte Gramm. Attic Inscriptions v. 110 If the letters ΔΔΓΔΙ are an acrophonic numeral..they are the only Attic exception to the use of the descending order.

2010 R. Sproat Lang., Technol., & Society i. 8 The acrophonic principle is somewhat more abstract, but otherwise is similar to the rebus principle: rather than the sound of the whole word, just the sound of the beginning of the word is relevant.

1847 Literary World (N.Y.) 1 May 302/2 Champollion..sought to settle acrophonically the values of the new hieroglyphics.

1952 F. M. Cross & D. N. Freedman Early Hebrew Orthography 9 It is now certain that the alphabet was derived acrophonically.., with a center of radiation somewhere in Canaan.

1986 Classical Jrnl. 81 230 The numbers used are..natural ‘round figures’ acrophonically but not alphabetically.

2005 H. Rogers Writing Syst. vii. 118 The Semitic symbols were used acrophonically.