In ancient Egypt, the Sphinx is a male statue of a lion with the head of a human, sometimes with wings. Most sphinxes however represent a king in his appearance as the sun god.
An anacronym is an acronym or an abbreviation so old or familiar that no one remembers what its letters stand for, such as BASIC or COBOL . By the way, an acronym is not just any abbreviation. It's a word that is short for other words, usually using their initial letters.
An anacronym is an acronym (or other initialism) for which the expanded form isn't widely known, such as OSHA or UNIX. See Examples and Observations below. Also see: 1  Abbreviation. 2  Backronym. 3  Guidelines for Using Capital Letters.y Richard Nordquist. Definition: A word formed from the initial letters of a name (for example, NATO, from North Atlantic Treaty Organization) or by combining initial letters of a series of words (radar, from radio detection and ranging). Adjective: acronymic.