Three-letter acronym

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A three-letter acronym (TLA), or three-letter abbreviation, is as the phrase suggests an abbreviation consisting of three letters. The abbreviation for TLA, TLA, has a special status among abbreviations and to some is humourous since abbreviations that are three-letters long are very common and TLA is, in fact, a TLA.

TLA is autological.

Most TLAs are initialisms (the initial letter of each word of a phrase), but most are not acronyms in the strict sense since they are pronounced by saying each letter, as in APA /ˌeɪpiːˈeɪ/ AY-pee-AY. Some are true acronyms (pronounced as a word) such as CAT (as in CAT scan) which is pronounced as the animal.