What Does Recursive Acronym Mean?
A recursive acronym is an acronym where the first letter is the acronym itself. For example, GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix.” The acronym can be expanded to multiple copies of itself in infinity. Recursive acronyms are used in some names of software projects for a humorous effect, following the example of Richard Stallman’s GNU project.
Techopedia Explains Recursive Acronym
A recursive acronym embeds a copy of itself within the acronym. One of the best known examples is Richard Stallman’s GNU project. GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix.” That copy in turn contains the word GNU, so the acronym is infinitely recursive. In GNU’s case, the acronym is a play on words: GNU is not Unix in the sense that it does not have any code dating to the original Bell Labs Unix, but the behavior of GNU attempts to mimic Unix systems as closely as possible.
