"acronym" in the noun sense
1. acronym, initialism
a word formed from the initial letters of the several words in the name and pronounced as one word
"`NATO' is an initialism for North Atlantic Treaty Organization"
"the word `scuba' is an acronym for s(elf)-c(ontained) u(nderwater) b(reathing) a(pparatus)"
Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)
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