Bowers style acronym

Bowers' acronyms are a shorthand notation created by Jonathan Bowers, used to identify polytopes without having to write their full (often quite long) names. They have been since expanded on, most notably by Richard Klitzing, either via direct request to the former or by means of expanding general building rules of him, which therefore has resulted in the umbrella term official Bowers style acronym (OBSA) for shorthands in accordance with Bowers's original ones.

The general building principle is to start with the full name and reduce every element (numbers, operators, the base object, etc.) into single characters. Then, characters are added euphoniously to make the OBSA readable/pronouncable. For example, "small rhombicuboctahedron" first becomes SRCO, and finally sirco.

Spaces in OBSAs are added to make the intended pronunciation more obvious or make the name more memorable. They are not necessarily added to separate functionally different parts of the name (such as operators and the ending facet counts). For example, "medial omnicircumfacetopental trishecatonicosachoron" becomes mom fapathi, even though the "medial omnicircum-" part of the name (that contributes mom to the OBSA) is just an arbitrary cut of the full name.

List of morphemes found in OBSAs

Morpheme	Possible meanings (sorted alphabetically, not by relevance)
a	alpha-, anti-, atop
at	tiling
au	augmented
az	apeirogon
b	240 (diacositetraconta-), based, beta-, bi-, blended
c	48 (tetracontocta-), capped, cellated, cis-, cube, octaexon (also o or oc)
co	-corona
cu	cupola
cy	cyclo-
d	10 (deca-, also da or de), 12 (dodeca-, also tw), diminished, dis-, double, duo-
e	elongated
en	9 (ennea-, also ene)
f	14 (tetradeca-), 2160 (dischiliahecatonhexaconta-), faceted
g	64 (hexacontatetra-), grand (usually ga), great
gy	gyrated (also gyr)
h	6 (hexa-, also ha or x), 16 (hexadeca-, also he), 120 (hecatonicosa-, also hi or y), demi-, hebe-, hemi-, hollow (also ho), honeycomb (also hon)
he	7 (hepta-, also l or sa), 16
hen	11 (hendeca-, also u)
i	20 (icosa-, also ike), 24 (icositetra-, also ico or y), inner, intercepted (also n), inverted
j	27 (icosihepta-)
k	72 (heptacontadi-), 256 (diacosipentacontahexa-), 1024 (chiliaicositetra-), chiral, skew
l	7 (for heptapeton modifications), 56 (pentacontahexa-), aligned, lune, polar
m	54 (pentacontatetra-), circum-, medial, meta-
n	5 (for penteract), 126 (hecatonicosihexa-), intercepted (also i), spino-
o	8 (octa-, also oc), omni-, ortho-, outer
p	5 (penta-, also pe or n), para-, -pental, prism (also pe), prismated
py	pyramid
q	576 (pentacosiheptacontahexa-), quasi-
r	radial, rectified, retro-, rhombated, replinished
ro	rotunda
s	small (also sm), snub (also sn), square (also squ), stellated (also st)
sa	hepteract
sc	scalene
st	pentagram (also star)
t	3 (tri-, triangle), 4 (tetra-), 30 (triaconta-), 32 (triacontadi-), tesseract, toroidal, trio-, tris-, trans-, truncated
tw	12 (for dodecagon)
u	11 (for hendecaxennon)
ut	tetris-
v	512 (pentacosidodeca-), -verted
w	wedge/spheno-
x	6 (for hexateron or hexeract), 600 (hexacosi-)
y	24 (icositetra-, also i or ico), 120 (hecatonicosa-, also h or hi), 17280 (myriaheptachiliadiacosioctaconta-), thyrido-
z	128 (hecatonicosocta-)

Common combinations of morphemes

Combination	Meaning
af	antifastegium
ap	antiprism
appy	antiprismatic pyramid
aw	antiwedge
co	cuboctahedron
cuf	cupofastegium
dip	duoprism
dp, dip	disprismato-
dt, dit	ditrigonary, duotegum
fip, fap	facetopental
gr	great rhombated
gye	gyroelongated
hiddix	hecatonicosidishexacosichoron
id	icosidodecahedron
kv, kav, kev, kiv	skewverted
nt	penteractitriacontaditeron
ofp, ofap	omnifacetopental
omfap	omnicircumfacetopental
p(...)ex	partially (...-)expanded
puf	pucofastegium
pv, piv	prismatoverted
rawv	retrosphenoverted
quit, quat	quasitruncated
rawv	retrosphenoverted
sr	small rhombated
tip	trioprism
wav	sphenoverted
xady, ixady	hexacosidishecatonicosachoron
xithi, xathi	hexacositrishecatonicosachoron
xhi	hexacosihecatonicosachoron
xog	hexeractihexacontatetrapeton