Acme is the name most frequently used in jurisprudence to indicate a fictional company or corporation (or generically a subject with juridical personality), in order to simulate a concrete case of application or interpretation of the law. Usually, in English-speaking common law the name John Doe is similarly used for a fictional subject with physical personality (Romans used Aulus Agerius and Numerius Negidius, or the triad Titius, Caius, Sempronius).
The origins of the term are obscure, but if not the Latin word acme meaning high point or best, it would probably be derived from an acronym.The most common is "American corporation manufacturing everything".
Acme is also:
- the fictional Acme Corporation in the Road Runner cartoons, suppliers of every kind of explosive device and other novelities, such as jet-propelled roller-skates.
- Acme Markets, a real grocery store chain on the east coast owned by Albertson's. Founded in 1891 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Samuel Robinson and Robert Crawford, 'Robinson and Crawford' merged with four other firms in 1917 to become the largest grocer in the world, and in 1931 adopted the name Acme.
- the fictional ACME Detective Agency in the Carmen Sandiego series.
