▪ I. ack
(æk)
and vars., used for a in the oral transliteration of code messages and in telephone communications, as in ack emma, for a.m. = ante meridiem; air mechanic. See ack-ack, emma. In military use replaced by able in Dec. 1942.
| 1898 Signalling Instructions (War Office) 86 The letters T, A, B, M,..will be called toc, ak [1904 Signalling Regs. ack], beer, emma. 1917 ‘Ian Hay’ Carrying On vi. 134 He [the Signaller] salutes the rosy dawn as ‘Akk Emma’, and eventide as ‘Pip Emma’. 1918 Signalling Simplified ii Special Names of Letters. (Semaphore and Morse.) A = Ack{ddd}Note that, in signalling, these Special Names must always be used, i.e. A is always Ack, M is always Emma, and so on. 1927 D. L. Sayers Unnatural Death iii. xxiii. 285 Some damned thing at the Yard, I suppose. At three ack emma! 1930 Brophy & Partridge Songs & Slang, 1914–18 93 Ack Emma, Air Mechanic, in the Royal Air Force. Also a.m. = morning. 1934 V. M. Yeates Winged Victory 78 The Ak Emma went off in search of food. a 1935 T. E. Lawrence Mint (1955) xxii. 78 We shorten them [sc. our ranks] to LAC, AC I, AC II, and speak of ourselves as ‘ack-emmas’ (the air mechanic of the Great War) or ‘urks’. |
▪ II. ack
occas. Sc. form of act v. and n.
▪ III. ack(e
variant of ac conj. Obs., but.