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.
anÂ·aÂ·log. n. 1. Something that bears an analogy to something else; something that is comparable: Titan, Saturn's giant moon ... seems like an analog of the environment of Earth on the eve of life (David Grindspoon).