List of acronyms ("words made from parts of other words, pronounceable") and initialisms ("list of initial characters from a name or phrase, usually not pronounced"). These definitions are not rigid, but AIDS and Interpol are acronyms and FBI and ACLU are initialisms.
Please add your own, in alphabetical order:
- AA - Alcoholics Anonymous / Automobile Association
- AAA - American Automobile Association
- ACL - Access Control List
- ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
- AD - Latin "Anno Domini" (In the year of our Lord)
- ADT - Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
- AFAIK - As far as I know
- AFAIR - As far as I remember
- AFJ - April Fool's Joke
- AFK - Away from keyboard
- AGM
- AI - Amnesty International; Artificial Intelligence
- AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
- AIM - AOL Instant Messenger
- aka - also known as
- AKDT - Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time (UTC-8 hours)
- AKST - Alaska Standard Time (UTC-9 hours)
- ANSI - American National Standards Institute
- AOL - America Online
- AP - Associated Press
- apm - Advanced Power Management
- ASAP - as soon as possible
- ASCAP - American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers
- 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
- AUC - Ab Urbe Condita
- AVO - Apprehended Violence Order
- AWACS - Airborne Warning and Control System
- AWOL - Absent Without Leave (military jargon)
- B2B - Business to Business
- B2C - Business to Customer
- B2E - Business to Employee
- BB - Brigitte Bardot (actress) / Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation)
- BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
- BBQ - Barbeque
- BCC - Blind Carbon Copy
- BFE - Beyond/Butt F****** Egypt (colloquial for "quite far away")
- BMI - Broadcast Music Incorporated
- BMX - Bicycle Motor Cross
- BO2K - Back Orifice 2000
- BOFH - Bastard operator from hell
- BP - British Petroleum
- bpm - Beats per minute
- BRB - Internet chat abbreviation, "be right back"
- BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow disease
- BSL - British Sign Language
- BST - British Summer Time (UTC+1 hour)
- BT - British Telecommunications plc
- BTO - Built to Order
- BTW - By the way
- BYOB - Bring your own beverages/bottle
- CB - citizens' band radio
- CC - carbon copy
- CD - Compact Disc
- CDC - Centre for Disease Control and prevention
- 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
- CID - Criminal Investigations Department
- CLEC - Competitive (?) Local Exchange Carrier
- CO - Central Office (Phone Company office or POP)
- CMM - Capability Maturity Model
- CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- CNN - Cable News Network
- CPA - Certified Practicing Accountant
- CRM - Customer Relations Management
- DC - Italian Democrazia Cristiana
- DND - Do Not Disturb
- DOS - Density of State
- DVD - Digital Versatile Disk (was Digital Video Disk)
- EEC - European Economical Community
- ELF - Extremely low frequency
- ESA - European Space Agency
- ETA - estimated time of arrival
- etc - latin "et cetera" (and remaining)
- ETLA - Extended TLA
- EU - European Union
- FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization
- FIDE - The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (World Chess Foundation)
- FIFO - First In First Out
- FUBAR - F****d Up Beyond All Repair/Recognition
- FWIW - For What It's Worth
- GFY - Internet chat acronym, "good for you", or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context
- GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out
- GMO - Genetically modified organism
- GT - Gran Turismo
- HMS - Her (or His) Majesty's Ship (see Royal Navy)
- IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency
- IAI - International African Institute
- IANAL - I am not a lawyer
- ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organisation
- ICC - International Criminal Court
- IIRC - If I recall correctly
- ILC - International Law Commission
- ILO - International Labour Organisation
- IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
- IMO - International Maritime Organisation
- IMO - In My Opinion
- Interpol -- International Criminal Police Organization
- IPN - Polish Institute for National Memory (Instytut pamieci narodowej)
- IRA - Irish Republican Army
- IRO - International Refugee Organisation
- IRS - Internal Revenue Service
- ISA - International Seabed Authority
- ITU - International Telecommunication Union
(yet to be established)
- JATO - Jet Assisted Takeoff Unit
- KARNAC - Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context
- KISS - Keep it simple stupid
- KKK - Ku Klux Klan
- LASER - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
- LATA - Local Access Transport Area
- LEC - Local Exchange Carrier
- LGB - Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual
- LIFO - Last In First Out
- LMS - London Mathematical Society
- LOL - Laughing Out Loud
- MASER - Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
- MHz - Megahertz
- MMU - Manned Maneuvering Unit
- MOPE - Most Oppressed People Ever (politics)
- MSIE - Microsoft Internet Explorer
- MTV - Music TeleVision
- NAIRU - Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
- NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NASCAR - National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
- NATO - North-Atlantic Treaty Organization
- Nfld - Newfoundland
- NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard
- NGO - Non-Governmental Organization
- NLP - Natural Language Processing or Neuro Linguistic Programming
- NPOV - Neutral point of view
- NUTS - Nuclear Utilization Target Selection
- PABX - Private Automated Branch Exchange (company phone system)
- PBX - Private Branch Exchange (company phone system)
- PDA - Public display of affection; personal digital assistant
- plc - (British) public limited company
- POP - Point of Presence
- POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service
- Quango - (British) quasi non-governmental organisation
- Quasar - quasi-stellar radio source
- qv - Latin "quod vide" (which see)
- radar - radio detection and ranging
- RBOC - Regional Bell operating company ("Baby Bell")
- RIP - Rest in Peace (requiescant in pace)
- RP - role-playing
- RPG - role-playing game
- RPN - Reverse Polish Notation
- SAS - Special Air Service - Scandanavian Airline Systems
- SCUBA - Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
- SMDR - Station Message Detail Recording
- SNAFU - Situation Normal All F****d Up
- SOL - S**t Out of Luck
- SOV - Single occupant vehicle
- SPQR - Senatus PopulusQue Romanus
- SSRI - Social Systems Research Institute
- STOVL - Short Take Off and Vertical Landing
- SVO - subject, verb, object
- TLA - Three-Letter Acronym
- TTYL - Internet chat acryonym, "talk to you later"
- UCK - acronym for two Albanian guerilla movements
- UFO - Unidentified Flying Object
- UN - United Nations
- UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- UNHCR - United Nations High Commission for Refugees
- UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund, originally United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
- UNIDO - United Nations Industrial Development Organization
- UNIFEM - United Nations Fund for Women
- UPU - Universal Postal Union
- USC - United States Code
- VSO - Voluntary Services Overseas
- VTOL - Vertical Takeoff & Landing
- 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
- WTC - World Trade Center
- WTO - World Trade Organization
- YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary
Back to Acronym.
See also:
External links
Large lists of acronyms may be found at http://www.acronymfinder.com/ and http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/vera/vera_toc.html