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List of acronyms and initialisms

This is a list of acronyms and initialisms.

For the purpose of this list, an acronym is an abbreviation that is pronounced as a series of constituent letters, and an initialism is an abbreviation whose pronunciation is wholly or partly the names of constituent letters. Also, a pseudo-blend is an abbreviation that is not really an acronym, nor an initialism nor a true portmanteau word, usually due to extra or omitted letters.

(a) = acronym in the example: SARS - (a) Severe acute respiratory syndrome
(i) = initialism in the example: CD - (i) Compact disc
(p) = pseudo-blend in the example: UNIFEM - (p) United Nations Development Fund for Women

Add new entries here

Please add your own, in a quasi-dictionary order with lowercase treated the same as uppercase. This means that only alphanumeric characters are significant to determine the order, and that lowercase letters occupy the same ordering position as uppercase. For example: Algol appears before ALS. This differs from a strict ASCII ordering.

0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Non-alphabetic

0-9

  • 2D - (i) Two-dimensional
  • 2.5D - (i) "Two-and-a-half-dee": two-dimensional computer graphics imitating 3D
  • 2G - (i) Second-generation mobile (cellular, wireless) telephone system
  • 2.5G - (i) Second-and-a-half-generation mobile telephone system
  • 3D - (i) Three-dimensional
  • 3G - (i) Third-generation mobile telephone system
  • 3M - (i) Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
  • 4D - (i) Four-dimensional (usually three spatial plus one temporal dimension, sometimes 4 spatial ones)
  • 4G - (i) Fourth-generation mobile telephone system
  • 4GL - (i) Fourth-generation programming language
  • 4WD - (i) Four wheel drive (cf. AWD)

A

  • A4 - (i) many, including a European standard office paper size; see entry

AA

AB

AC

AD-AE

AF-AG

AI-AM

AN-AR

AS

  • ASA - (i) Acetesalicylic acid - American Standards Association - Army Security Agency - Atlantic Southeast Airlines
  • ASAP - (a) as soon as possible
  • ASCAP - (a) American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
  • ASCC - (i) Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator
  • ASCII - (a) American Standard Code for Information Interchange
  • ASDF - (i) Attack, Sustain, Decay, Release (sound envelope specification)
  • ASEAN - (i) Association of Southeast Asian Nations
  • ASFAR - (a) Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions
  • ASIC - (a) Application-specific integrated circuit
  • ASICS - (a) Latin, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano ("A Sound Mind in a Sound Body") (athletic shoe manufacturer)
  • ASIO - (i) Australian Security Intelligence Service
  • ASL - (i) American Sign Language
  • ASP - (i) Active Server Pages - Application Service Provider (cf ISP)
  • ASQ - (a) American Society for Quality
  • ASRAAM - (a) Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile
  • AST - (i) Atlantic Standard Time (UTC-4 hours)
  • ASTREA - (a) Aerial support to regional enforcement agencies (sheriff's air support unit)

AT-AY

  • ATAS - (a) Air-to-Air Stinger (missile)
  • ATB - (i) Active Time Battle.
  • ATM - (i) automated teller machine - asynchronous transfer mode - at the moment
  • ATP - (i) Adenosine triphosphate
  • AT&T - (i) American Telephone and Telegraph (U.S. company, aka "Ma Bell")
  • ATI - (i) Allied Telesyn International, Inc.
  • ATV - (i) All-Terrain Vehicle
  • AUC - (i) Latin, Ab Urbe Condita ("from the founding of the city") / Anno Urbis Conditae ("in the year since the founding of the city") (of Rome) - Area Under the Curve (concentration time curve; medicine)
  • AVI - (i) Audio Video Interleave
  • AVO - (i) Apprehended Violence Order
  • AWACS - (a) Airborne Warning and Control System
  • AWD - (i) many, including all wheel drive; see entry
  • AWOL - (a) Absent Without Official Leave - Absent w/o Leave (military jargon)
  • AYU - (i) As Yet Unknown

B

BA-BC

baa british airport authority

BD-BN

BO-BR

  • BO2K - (i) Back Orifice 2000
  • BOAC - (i) British Overseas Airways Corporation (predecessor of British Airways)
  • BOAT - (a) Byway Open to All Traffic (pronounced as 2 syllables, "Bo-At")
  • BODMAS - (a) Brackets, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction
  • BOFH - (i) Bastard operator from hell
  • BOGOF - (a) Buy one, get one free
  • BOHICA - (a) Bend Over Here It Comes Again
  • BOP - (i) Balance of Payments
  • BOT - (i) Balance of Trade
  • BP - (i) British Petroleum (today, BP doesn't officially stand for everything)
  • BPM - (i) Beats Per Minute
  • BRB - (i) "be right back" (Internet chat abbreviation)
  • BRFSS - (i) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (a CDC health survey covering the US and US territories; pronounced "BURF us")

BS-BY

C

CA-CD

CE-CH

CI-CM

CN-CQ

CR-CW

D

DA-DE

DH-DP

DR-DW

E

  • E3 - (i) Electronic Entertainment Expo and other meanings, see entry

EA-EM

EN-EV

F

FA-FI

FL-FY

  • FLAC - (a/i) Free Lossless Audio Codec .
  • FLAK - (i) Fliegen Abwehr Kannonen (German: anti aicraft guns)
  • FLIR - (i) forward looking infrared (sensor)
  • FLK - (i) Funny-Looking Kid (medical diagnosis in-joke)
  • FM - (i) frequency modulation (electronics)
  • FMSF - (i) False Memory Syndrome Foundation
  • Fortran - (p) Formula Translator (programming language)
  • FPS - (i) First person shooter (computer/video games) - frames per second (motion pictures, television, computer graphics)
  • FQDN - Full Qualified Domain Name
  • FSC - (a) Forest Stewardship Council (an ecological pressure group)
  • FSF - (i) Free Software Foundation
  • FST - (i) Finlands Svenska Television (Finland's Swedish-language television)
  • FTC - (i) Federal Trade Commission
  • FTL - (i) Faster Than Light
  • FTP - (i) File Transfer Protocol
  • FTSE - (a/i) Financial Times Stock Exchange (pronounced "footsie")
  • FVF - (i) Firefox Version Format
  • FUBAR - (a) Fucked (or Fouled) Up Beyond All Recognition
  • FUD - (a) Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt (marketing strategy)
  • FWI - (i) French West Indies
  • FWIW - (i) For What It's Worth
  • FYI - (i) For Your Information
  • FYROM - (i) Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

G

GA-GI

  • GAAR - (a) General anti-avoidance rule (see Tax evasion)
  • GABA - (i) Gamma-aminobutyric acid
  • GAD - (a) Generalized Anxiety Disorder
  • GBE - (i) Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
  • GCD - (i) see entry
  • GCF - (i) greatest common factor
  • GDP - (i) gross domestic product
  • GDR - (i) German Democratic Republic (cf. DDR)
  • GE - (i) General Electric - Genetic Engineering (cf. GM)
  • GEOS - (i) Graphical Environment Operating System
  • Gestapo - (p) GEheime STAatsPOlizei ("secret state police")
  • GEV - (i) Ground Effect Vehicle - Giga Electron-Volt (spelled GeV).
  • GFCI - (i) ground fault circuit interrupter (aka GFI)
  • GFDL - (i) GNU Free Documentation License
  • GFI - (i) ground fault interrupter (aka GFCI)
  • GFY - (i) Internet chat acronym, "good for you", or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context
  • GHB - (i) gamma-hydroxybutyrate
  • GI - (i) Galvanised Iron - General Issue - Government Issue - Gastro-intestinal
  • GIF - (a) Graphics Interchange Format
  • GIGO - (a) Garbage In Garbage Out
  • GIMP - (a) GNU Image Manipulation Program

GL-GU

H

HA-HO

HP-HW

  • HP - (i) Hewlett-Packard - horse power
  • HP-GL - (i) Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
  • HP-IB - (i) Hewlett-Packard Instrument/Interface Bus (first implementation of GP-IB, later standardised and now known as IEEE-488)
  • HP-IL - (i) Hewlett-Packard Interface Loop (serial bus used with some HP calculators and computers, notably the HP-41 and HP-71 series)
  • HPV - (i) Human papilloma virus
  • HQ - (i) Headquarters
  • HRH - (i) Her/His Royal Highness
  • HSS - (i) High-Speed Steel
  • HST - (i) see entry
  • HSV - (i) herpes simplex virus - hue saturation value (colour model)
  • HTML - (i) Hypertext Markup Language
  • HURD - (a) Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons (cf. Hird)
  • HVP - (i) hydrolized vegetable protein - HarborView Properties - High Vacuum Process
  • HW - (i) hardware

I

IA-ID

IE-IQ

IR-IU

J

K

L

LA-LI

LL-LV

M

MA-MH

MI-MN

MO-MT

N

N#

NA-ND

NE-NI

NL-NU

NW-NZ

O

P

  • P2P - Peer to Peer (file sharing)

PA-PC

PD-PK

PL-PR

PS-PY

Q

R

  • R2I - (i) Resistance to Interrogation

RA-RE

RF-RP

RR-RW

S

SA-SC

SD-SI

SL-SO

SP-ST

SU-SW

T

TA-TL

TM-TU

TV-TW

U

UA-UL

UN-UR

US-UV

V

W

X

  • XHTML - (i) eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language
  • XML - (i) eXtensible Markup Language
  • XrML - (i) eXtensible Rights Markup Language
  • XSL - (i) eXtensible Style Language

Y

  • YAC - (a/i) Youth-Adult Committee .
  • YAP - (a) Young Aspiring Professional
  • YHBT - (i) You Have Been Trolled
  • Yippie - (a) Youth International Party + suffix
  • YM - (i) Your Magazine (originally Young Miss, later Young & Modern)
  • YMCA - (i) Young Men's Christian Association
  • YMMV - (i) Your Mileage May Vary
  • YRUU - (i) Young Religious Unitarian Universalists .
  • Yuppie - (a) Young Urban Professional + suffix
  • YWCA - (i) Young Women's Christian Association

Z

Dubious entries

Words that may not be acronyms, but (humorous) folk etymology says that they are, some of these are backronyms:

  • Fuck - (a) Fornication under consent of the king - For unlawful carnal knowledge
  • Golf - (a) Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden
  • News - (a) North, east, west and south (a mnemonic)
  • Pom - (a) (Australian English) Prisoner of His Majesty
  • Posh - (a) Port out, starboard home
  • Rap - (a) Rhythm and poetry - Rhythmical African poetry - Rhythmic American Poetry
  • Tip - (a) To insure promptness - (plural) To insure prompt service

See also

External links


Last updated: 01-22-2005 01:21:04