List of initialisms
This is a list of initialisms, acronyms that are pronounced as a series of the names of the constituent letters (but, there is disagreement on some; eg RBOC as "are-bock").
- AA - Alcoholics Anonymous / Automobile Association
- AAA - American Automobile Association
- AAD - analogue analogue digital
- ADD - analogue digital digital - attention-deficit disorder (now ADS)
- ABC - anti-lock brake controller
- ABC - alcoholic-beverage commission - alien big cat - Always Be Careful - American-Born Chinese - American Broadcasting Company - anti-lock brake controller - Associated British Corporation - Atanasoff Berry Computer - Atlantic Baptist College, t - Atomic Biological Chemical (see NBC) - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
- ABM - anti-ballistic missile - Asynchronous Balanced Mode - automated banking machine
- ABS - acrylonitrile butadiene styrene - anti-lock braking system
- AC - adriamycin-cyclophosphamide (chemotherapy) - alternating current - Anonymous Coward - ante christum - air conditioning - Albert Champion
- ACL - Access Control List
- ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
- ACM - see entry
- AD - Latin "Anno Domini" (In the year of our Lord)
- ADA - American Dental Association
- ADL - Anti-Defamation League
- ADM - Archer Daniels Midland
- ADT - Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
- AFACT - As far as I can tell
- AFAIK - As far as I know
- AFAIR - As far as I remember
- AFJ - April Fool's Joke
- AFK - Away from keyboard
- AFL - American Federation of Labor - American Football League - Arena Football League - Australian Football League
- AGM - Annual General Meeting
- AI - Amnesty International; Artificial Intelligence
- AIC - African Independent Church
- AIDS - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- AIM - AOL Instant Messenger, among others
- aka - also known as
- AKDT - Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time (UTC-8 hours)
- AKST - Alaska Standard Time (UTC-9 hours)
- ALS - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- AM - see entry
- AMA - American Medical Association
- AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
- AMS - American Mathematical Society
- ANSI - American National Standards Institute
- AOL - America Online
- AP - Associated Press
- apm - Advanced Power Management
- ASA - Acetesalicylic acid - American Standards Association - Army Security Agency - Atlantic Southeast Airlines
- ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
- ASIO - Australian Security Intelligence Service
- ASL - American Sign Language
- ASP - Application service provider
- ASP - Active Server Pages
- AST - Atlantic Standard Time (UTC-4 hours)
- AT&T - American Telephone and Telegraph Company
- ATM - automated teller machine - asynchronous transfer mode
- ATV - All-Terrain Vehicle
- AUC - 1. Latin "AB URBE CONDITA" (from the founding of the city (of Rome) or "ANNO URBIS CONDITAE" (in the year from the founding of the city (of Rome) 2. "area under the curve" in the concentration time curve (medicine)
- AVO - Apprehended Violence Order
- AZT - azidothymidine
- B2B - Business to Business
- B2C - Business to Customer
- B2E - Business to Employee
- BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit
- BATF - Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
- BB - Brigitte Bardot (actress) / Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation)
- BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
- BBQ - Barbeque
- BC - Before Christ / Blind Copy (in emailers)
- BCC - Blind Carbon Copy
- BCE - Before Common Era - British Columbia Electric
- BDA - British Dental Association
- BDU - battle-dress uniform
- BFE - Beyond/Butt F*****' Egypt (colloquial for "quite far away")
- BMI - Broadcast Music Incorporated / Body mass index
- BMW - Bayerische Motoren Werke/Bavarian motor-works
- BMX - Bicycle Motor Cross
- BNS - Bank of Nova Scotia
- BO2K - Back Orifice 2000
- BOFH - Bastard operator from hell
- BP - British Petroleum (today, BP doesn't officially stand for everything)
- bpm - Beats per minute
- BRB - Internet chat abbreviation, "be right back"
- BSA - Boy Scouts of America
- BSD - Berkeley Software Distribution (distinct from BSoD)
- BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow disease
- BSL - British Sign Language
- BSoD - Blue screen of death (distinct from BSD)
- BST - bovine somatatotrophin hormone - Blended Sales Tax - British Summer Time
- BST - bovine Somatatotrophin hormone
- BT - British Telecommunications plc
- BTO - Built to Order
- BTU - British thermal unit
- BTW - By the way
- BYOB - Bring your own beverages/bottle
- CB - citizens' band radio
- CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- CC - carbon copy
- CCCP - Cyrillic letters corresponding SSSR, see USSR
- CCD - charge-coupled device
- CD - Compact disc
- CDC - Centre for Disease Control and prevention - Control Data Corporation
- CE - Common (or Christian) Era (cf. AD)
- CEPT - Conference Européenne des administration des Postes et des Télécommunications (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations)
- cf. - Latin confer (compare, or see also)
- CFG - Context-free grammar, Control flow graph
- CIA - Central Intelligence Agency - Culinary Institute of America
- CID - Criminal Investigations Department
- CIO - Chief information officer - Congress of Industrial Organisations
- CIS - Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union
- CLEC - Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
- CMHC - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
- CMM - Capability Maturity Model
- CMR - Coaxial Main Rotors (helicopter type)
- CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- CNN - Cable News Network
- CO - Central Office (Phone Company office or POP)
- CPA - Certified Practicing Accountant
- CRC - Christian Reformed Church - Cyclic redundancy check - Chemical Rubber Company
- CRM - Customer Relationship Management
- CRT - cathode ray tube - Chinese remainder theorem
- CRTC - Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
- CSA - Confederate States of America - Canadian Standards Association - Canadian Space Agency - Child Support Agency - Czech Airlines - Community Supported Agriculture
- CSICOP - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
- CSIS - Canadian Security Intelligence Service - Center For Strategic & International Studies
- CUPE - Canadian Union of Public Employees
- CUPW - Canadian Union of Postal Workers
- CV - see entry
- CVR - Cockpit voice recorder
- CWC - Chemical Weapons Convention
- DC - da capo - Italian Democrazia Cristiana - direct current - District of Columbia - Douglas Aircraft Company - Dublin Core
- DDD - digital digital digital - Data Display Debugger
- DDS - Doctor of Dental Surgery
- DDT - dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (insectide)
- DEA - Drug Enforcement Agency
- DH, DD, DS - dear husband, dear daughter, dear son (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards)
- DHSS - Department of Health and Social Security
- DIY - do it yourself
- DNA - DeoxyriboNucleic Acid - Douglas Adams
- DND - Do Not Disturb - Department of National Defense
- DOA - Dead On Arrival
- DTRA - Defence Threat Reduction Agency
- DUI - Driving Under the Influence - Data Use Identifier - Data Use Institute - Davis Unified Ignition - Diving Unlimited International - Documento Único de Identidad - Documento Unico de Importación - Duke University Improv
- DVD - Digital Versatile Disk (was Digital Video Disk)
- DWI - Driving While Intoxicated/Impaired - Dance With Intensity - Danish West Indies - Diffusion-weighted imaging - Direct water injection - Disaster Welfare Inquiry - Drinking Water Inspectorate
- EBCDIC - Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
- EBE - extraterrestrial biological entity
- EEC - European Economical Community
- eg - example gratis (Latin, roughly "for example")
- ELF - Earth Liberation Front - Endangered Language Fund - Eritrean Liberation Front - Executable and Linkable Format - Extremely Low Frequencies
- ENE - east northeast
- ESA - European Space Agency
- ESE - east southeast
- ESP - Extra-Sensory Perception
- ETA - estimated time of arrival; Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna
- etc - latin "et cetera" (and remaining)
- ETLA - Extended TLA
- EU - European Union
- EULA - End-User License Agreement
- EVA - extra-vehicular activity
- FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization
- FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
- FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation
- FCM - Fogarty's Cove Music - Federation of Canadian Municipalities
- FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt / Flight data recorder
- FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency
- FLIR - forward looking infrared
- FLK - Funny-Looking Kid (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- FM - frequency modulation
- FMSF False Memory Syndrome Foundation
- FPS - First person shooter
- FST - Finlands Svenska Television (Finland's Swedish-language television)
- FTL - Faster Than Light
- FUBAR - F****d Up Beyond All Repair/Recognition
- FUD - Fear Uncertainty Doubt
- FWIW - For What It's Worth
- FYI - For Your Information
- GCD - greatest common divisor
- GCF - greatest common factor
- GE - General Electric - Genetic Engineering (see GM)
- GEV - Ground Effect Vehicle
- GFCI - ground fault circuit interrupter (aka GFI)
- GFI - ground fault interrupter (aka GFCI)
- GFY - Internet chat acronym, "good for you", or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context
- GL - Grenade Launcher
- GM - GameMaster (role-playing terminology) / Genetically Modified / General Motors
- GmbH - Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (German, roughy "Inc" or "Ltd")
- GMO - Genetically modified organism
- GT - Gran Turismo
- GUT - grand unification theory
- HEPA - High-efficiency particulate air (filter)
- HMCE - Her/His Majesty's Customs and Excise
- HMCS - Her/His Majesty's Canadian Ship
- HMO - Health Management Organization
- HMP - Her (or His) Majesty's Prison
- HMS - Her (or His) Majesty's Ship (see Royal Navy)
- HMSO - Her (or His) Majesty's Stationery Office
- HPGL - Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
- HPIB - Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus
- HQ - Headquarters
- HRH - His/Her Royal Highness
- HSS - High-Speed Steel
- HST - see entry
- HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
- IAAL - I am a lawyer
- IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency
- IAI - International African Institute
- IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
- IANAL - I am not a lawyer
- IATA - International Air Transport Association
- ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization
- ICBM - intercontinental ballistic missile
- ICC - International Criminal Court
- IDF - Israeli Defence Force
- ie - ?? (Latin, roughly "that is")
- IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- IFO - Identified flying object
- IIRC - If I recall correctly
- ILC - International Law Commission
- ILO - International Labour Organisation
- IMF - International Monetary Fund
- IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
- IMO - International Maritime Organization - In My Opinion
- INLA - Irish National Liberation Army
- IPN - Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (Institute for National Memory)
- IR - infrared
- IRA - Individual Retirement Account - Irish Republican Army
- IRC - Internet relay chat
- IRO - International Refugee Organisation
- IRS - Internal Revenue Service
- ISA - Individual Savings Account - industry standard architecture - Instruction Set Architecture - International Seabed Authority
- ISO - International Organization for Standardization
- ITN - Independent Television News (British TV news company)
- ITU - International Telecommunication Union (yet to be established)
- JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association
- JDL - Jewish Defense League
- JFK - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
- JRA - Japanese Red Army
- KARNAC - Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context
- KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security - Soviet Intelligence Service
- KIA - Killed In Action
- KKK - Ku Klux Klan
- LATA - Local Access Transport Area
- LBGT - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual
- LBJ - Lyndon Johnson - "Lady Bird" Johnson - Lightbulb joke
- LCM - least common multiple
- LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
- LEC - Local Exchange Carrier
- LED - Light Emiting Diode
- LGB - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
- LGM - little green men
- LIFO - Last In First Out
- LMAO - Laughing my a** off.
- LMS - London Mathematical Society
- LOL - Laughing Out Loud
- LSD - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
- LSE - London School of Economics - London Stock Exchange
- LSI - Large-Scale Integration
- MAA - Mathematical Association of America
- MAD - magnetic anomaly detector - mutual assured destruction
- MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving - Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency
- MASH - Mobile army surgical hospital
- MBTA - Massachussetts Bay Transit Authority
- MDF - main distribution frame - medium-density fibreboard
- MG - Machine gun
- MHz - Megahertz
- MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey)
- MMU - Manned Maneuvering Unit
- MND - Motor Neurone Disease
- MO - modus operandi
- MOPE - Most Oppressed People Ever (politics)
- MRI - magnetic resonance imaging
- MS - Master of Science - Microsoft (sometimes M$) - Multiple sclerosis
- MSG - Monosodium glutamate
- MSIE - Microsoft Internet Explorer
- MTR - Main and Tail Rotor (helicopter type)
- MTV - Music TeleVision; MainosTeleVisio (Finnish commercial TV company)
- n/a - not available / Not applicable
- NAIRU - Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
- NASA - Nat'l Aeronautics and Space Administration - Never A Straight Answer
- NB - nota bene - New Brunswick
- NBC - Nuclear/Biological/Chemical - National Broadcasting Corporation
- NE - northeast
- NET - National Educational Television
- NFER - National Foundation for Educational Research
- Nfld - Newfoundland
- NGO - Non-Governmental Organization
- NIH - National Institutes of Health - Not Invented Here
- NIMH - nickel metal hydride - National Institute of Medical Herbalists - National Institute of Mental Health
- NLP - Natural Language Processing or Neuro Linguistic Programming
- NNE - north northeast
- NNW - north northwest
- NPC - Non-Player Character (roleplaying terminology)
- NPOV - Neutral point of view
- NPR - National public radio
- NSA - National Security Agency
- NW - northwest
- NYSE - New York Stock Exchange
- NZ - New Zealand
- OAU - Organization for African Unity
- OBE - Order of the British Empire
- OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer
- OO - object oriented - over & out
- OOP - object-oriented programming
- OSB - oriented-strand board
- OSI - Office of Strategic Influence / Ontario Swine Improvement / Open Source Initiative / Open systems interconnect
- OSS - Organization for Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
- OTOH - On The Other Hand
- PABX - Private Automated Branch Exchange (company phone system)
- PARC - Palo Alto Research Center
- PBS - Public Broadcasting Service
- PBX - Private Branch Exchange (company phone system)
- PC - Personal Computer; Player Character (roleplaying terminology); Politically Correct(ness)
- PCB - see entry
- PCMCIA - People Can't Memorise Computer-Industry Acronyms
- PCP - phencyclidine - pneumocystis carinii pneumonia - Probabilistically Checkable Proof
- PDA - Public display of affection; personal digital assistant
- PETA - pentaerythritol triacrylate - People Eating Tasty Animals - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
- PFO - Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- PINF - People In Need Foundation (Czech charitable organization)
- PLC - (British) public limited company
- PLO - Palestine Liberation Organization
- PM - post meridian - Prime Minister - phase modulation - Perry Mason
- PNAC - Project for the New American Century
- PNG - Portable Network Graphic
- POP - Point of Presence - Post Office Protocol
- POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service, also PANS - Pretty Advanced (or Awsome) Network Services
- PPP - see entry
- PSA - Prostate specific antigen - Production Services Association - Paralysis Society of America - Pharmaceutical Society of Australia - Public Service Association - Public Service Announcement - pressure-sensitive adhesive
- PTA - parent-teacher association
- PVC - permanent virtual circuit - polyvinyl chloride - premature ventricular contraction
- PWP - Plot, What Plot? (in online fiction, especially fanfic or erotic fiction, to denote plotless, um, "feel-good" stories)
- QC - Queen's Counsel
- QCA - Qualifications and Curriculum Authority - Quality Council of Alberta
- QCD - quantum chromodynamics
- QED - Latin "quid es demonstrata" (that proves it) - quantum electrodynamics
- qv - Latin "quod vide" (which see)
- R&B - Rythm and Blues
- RAF - Royal Air Force; Red Army Faction
- Rap - Rythm and poetry
- RBOC - Regional Bell operating company ("Baby Bell")
- RC - see entry
- RCA - Radio Corporation of America
- RCAF - Royal Canadian Air Force
- RCCO - Royal Canadian College of Organists
- RCMP - Royal Canadian Mounted Police
- REACT - Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology
- RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America
- RIP - Rest in Peace (requiescant in pace)
- RMS - Royal Mail Ship (eg RMS Titanic) - Root-mean-square - Richard Stallman - Rate-monotonic scheduling
- RNA - Ribonuclear Acid
- ROFL(MAO) - Rolling On the Floor Laughing (My A** Off)
- ROV - remotely operated vehicle
- RP - role-playing
- RPG - role-playing game; Rocket Projectile Gun/Rocket Powered Grenade
- rpm - Revolutions Per Minute; Red Hat Package Manager
- RPN - Reverse Polish Notation
- rps - Revolutions Per Second
- RUC - Royal Ulster Constabulary
- SA - Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment, forerunner of SS)
- SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder
- SALT - Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
- SAR - Search and Rescue
- SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
- SAS - Special Air Service; Scandinavian Airline Systems
- SATB - soprano alto tenor bass
- SBS - Special Boat Service
- SCSI - small computer system interface
- SDI - see entry
- SDP - Social Democratic Party (European politics)
- SE - southeast
- SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- SGML - Standard Generalised Markup Language
- SIAM - Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
- SIG - Special Interest Group
- SIS - Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6)
- SLA - Symbionese Liberation Army
- SMDR - Station Message Detail Recording
- SMG - Submachine Gun
- SNAFU - Situation Normal (All Fouled Up)
- SOE - Special Operations Executive (WW2 British organization)
- SOL - S**t Out of Luck
- SOV - Single occupant vehicle
- SPQR - Senatus Populus Que Romanus
- SRB - solid rocket booster
- SS - Schutzstaffel (elite guard) - Secret Service - Spanish ship - stainless steel - Stockholm Skins - Super Sport
- SSE - south southeast
- SSRI - Social Systems Research Institute - Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
- SSW - south southwest
- STOL - Short Take Off and Landing
- STOVL - Short Take Off and Vertical Landing
- SVO - subject, verb, object
- SW - southwest
- SWAPO - South West African People's Organization
- TATT - Tired All The Time (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- TCP - Transmission Control Protocol - trichlorophenol
- TGIF - Thank God it's Friday
- TGV - Train à Grande Vitesse (high-speed train) - Tanjong Golden Village - Test Generation with Verification
- TLA - Three-Letter Acronym
- TLD - top-level domain
- TMR - Twin Main Rotors (helicopter type)
- TTYL - Internet chat acryonym, "talk to you later"
- TUNS - Technical University of Nova Scotia
- TWAT - The War Against Terror
- UBC - united baptist church - University of British Columbia
- UCK - acronym for two Albanian guerilla movements
- UCLA - University of California Los Angeles
- UFO - Unidentified Flying Object
- UHF - ultra high frequency
- UHMW - ultra-high molecular weight
- UL - Underwriters' Laboratories
- UN - United Nations
- UNHCR - United Nations High Commission for Refugees
- UNSM - Union of Nova Scotian Municipalities
- UPI - United Press International
- UPS - United Parcel Service - uninterruptible power supply
- UPU - Universal Postal Union
- USA - United States of America
- USAF - United States Air Force
- USAPATRIOT - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
- USC - United States Code
- USGS - United States Geological Survey
- USS - United States ship
- USSR - United Soviet Socialist Republics (ie. Soviet Union)
- UV - ultraviolet
- VAT - value-added tax
- VHF - very high frequency
- VLSI - Very-Large-Scale Integration
- VSO - Voluntary Services Overseas
- VTOL - Vertical Takeoff & Landing
- W3C - World Wide Web Convention
- WC - Winston Churchill - water closet
- WCL - World Confederation of Labour
- WFP - World Food Program
- WHO - World Health Organization
- WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
- WMO - World Meteorological Organization
- WNW - west northwest
- WRT - with respect to
- WSW - west southwest
- WTC - World Trade Center
- WTO - World Trade Organization
- WW1 (or WWI) - World War One
- WW2 (or WWII) - World War Two
- WWF - World Wildlife Fund; World Wrestling Federation
- WWW - World Wide Web
- YMCA - Young Men's Christian Association
- YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary
- YWCA - Young Women's Christian Association