alphabet soup
- noun
- /ˈælfəˌbɛt suːp/
- Informal
:
mezcla confusa
- In Canada, both the federal and provincial governments provide an alphabet soup of such policies and programs.
Examples
-
However, retail banking is governed by a whole other alphabet soup of federal authorities.
Blog text (34) -
Boston seemed owned by an alphabet soup of companies: ERA, AAA, AL-MAR, and Boston had shrunk to its high-income neighborhoods.
Fiction book (1990) -
The report was filled with an alphabet soup of terminology that made it difficult for the general public to understand.
-
Navigating through the alphabet soup of government regulations can be overwhelming for new entrepreneurs.
-
After the meeting, I was left with an alphabet soup of acronyms that I couldn't decipher.
Synonyms
43
7.2
Words used by a group or job that others cannot understand
9
9.9
Confusing speech or writing full of technical words that most people cannot understand
1
9.8
Language that is hard to understand because it uses many difficult words or nonsense
Complicated words used in universities that make ideas hard to understand
Confusing education words that sound important but mean little
Antonyms
How Confusing
- Informal
- Specialized
58
5.6
45
3.8
18
2.4
1
3.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The image of 'alphabet' (letters) combined with 'soup' (a mixed, undifferentiated mixture) gives a clear cue that the phrase refers to a jumble or mixture of letter-like items, so learners can infer a general sense of confusion or clutter. However, the conventional extension to mean specifically a confusing mix of acronyms/abbreviations/jargon is metaphorical and lexicalized, so the precise referent may not be fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Alphabet soup also comes from the image of a bowl of soup full of tiny alphabet letters all mixed together. People used that image for a confusing jumble of short names, so alphabet soup now also means 'a confusing mixture of abbreviations or acronyms'.