NOMINA SACRA. – abbreviations (v.) by suspension, in the Christian age one encounters words of a sacred character abbreviated by contraction which, according to the expression used by L. Traube to designate them, are now generally known as n. s.
Contraction is not of Christian origin, because in inscriptions predating the Christian era words abbreviated by this system are already found, in addition to the names of emperors and of Egyptian months, written with the suppression of intermediate letters in papyri and ostraka (cf. L. Schiaparelli, Note paleografiche, in Arch. stor. ital., 73 (1915), p. 307, note 2; and C. H. Turner [vedi BIBLICA.], p. 63, note); but it is commonly regarded as a Christian system of abbreviation, because there is no doubt that the first n. s. were not written in abbreviated form merely through simple imitation of an earlier practice, but also in order to give them a particular distinction, a precisely sacred character. The overline above the n. s. also probably originally had a distinctive significance, although its use as an abbreviation sign cannot be excluded, especially when contraction extends as a system of abbreviation to many words that have no sacred character whatsoever.
In Greek, by contrast, words that have a connection with the n. s. or derive from them will continue to be abbreviated by contraction almost exclusively (e.g.: ΘΚΟC = θεοτόνος, ΟΥΝΙΟC = οὐράνιος, ΠΝΙΚΟC (or ΠΝΑΤΙΚΟC) = πνευματικός, ΑΝΙΝΟC = ἀνθρώπιος, ΠΡΙC = πατρίς, ΚΟC = κυρίως, etc.).