Mnemonic

Updated: 12/31/2020 by Computer Hope

A mnemonic is a visual or auditory aid that helps an individual remember something. In computers, mnemonics make a shortcut easy to remember. For example, many menu options are displayed with an underlined character, representing a key to be pressed to access that menu or option. The keyboard shortcut for opening the File menu is F, which stands for "file". You can press Alt+F or Command+F to access the file menu using your keyboard. In the below illustration, you can see an example of a mnemonic.

Windows file menu in a Windows program.

Backronym, Keyboard shortcut, Mnemonic device, Operating system terms