Disclosed is a system and computer-implemented method for extracting an acronym and one or more corresponding expansions of the acronym from a document represented in a markup language. The computer-implemented method comprises: identifying at least one acronym contained in the document; determining one or more expansions of the at least one identified acronym based on a portion of document located proximate the identified acronym; determining a ranking for each determined expansion based attributes of the document; and selecting one or more expansions for an identified acronym using the determined rankings.