List of initialisms

This is a list of initialisms – abbreviations that are pronounced as a series of constituent letters. For a list of pronounceable abbreviations (acronyms), see list of acronyms. There is sometimes disagreement on what is an initialism and what is not, e.g. RBOC as "are-bock".

A,B,C

AA - Alcoholics Anonymous - Automobile Association
AAA - formerly American Automobile Association; now officially known by the initials; almost always pronounced "Triple A"
AAD - analogue analogue digital - Australian Antarctic Division
AARP - formerly American Association of Retired Persons, but now officially known only by the initials
AAS - American Astronomical Society; pronounce "Double A S"
ABA - American Bar Association / American Basketball Association
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 - Atomic Biological Chemical (see NBC) - Australian Broadcasting Corporation
ABM - anti-ballistic missile - Asynchronous Balanced Mode - automated banking machine
ABN - Australian Business Number - a number issued by the Australian government as registration of a business. Used for taxation purposes
ABS - acrylonitrile butadiene styrene - anti-lock braking system
AC - adriamycin-cyclophosphamide (chemotherapy) - alternating current - Anonymous Coward - ante christum - air conditioning - Albert Champion - Associazione Calcio (Italian for "football (soccer) club")
ACC - Automatic Climate Control / Atlantic Coast Conference
ACF - American Culinary Federation
ACN - Australian Company Number - a number issued by the Australian government as registration of a company (limited liability) in Australia.
ACL - Access Control List / anterior cruciate ligament
ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
ACM - see entry
ACS - American Chemical Society, American Cancer Society, Association of Caribbean States
AD - Latin "Anno Domini" (In the year of our Lord)
ADA - American Dental Association
ADD - analogue digital digital - attention-deficit disorder
ADHD - Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
ADHS - attention-deficit hyperactivity syndrome
ADL - Anti-Defamation League
ADM - Archer Daniels Midland
ADS - attention-deficit syndrome
ADT - Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
AFAICT - As far as I can tell
AFAIC - As far as I'm concerned
AFAIK - As far as I know
AFAIR - As far as I remember/recall
AFC - American Football Conference - Asian Football Confederation
AFJ - April Fool's Joke
AFK - Away from keyboard
AFL - American Federation of Labor - American Football League - Arena Football League - Australian Football League
AGA - Advanced Graphics Architecture
AGM - Annual General Meeting
AI - Amnesty International; Artificial Intelligence
AIA - Aerospace Industry Association
AIC - African Independent Church
AIM - AOL Instant Messenger, among others
AIPAC - American Israel Public Affairs Committee
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
ANC - African National Congress
AOL - America Online
AP - Associated Press / Advanced Placement
apm - Advanced Power Management
ASA - Acetesalicylic acid - American Standards Association - Army Security Agency - Atlantic Southeast Airlines
ASDF - Attack, Sustain, Decay, Release (sound envelope specification)
ASEAN - Association of Southeast Asian Nations
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
B&W - black and white - Babcock & Wilcox
B2B - Business to Business
B2C - Business to Customer
B2E - Business to Employee
BASF - Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik
BATF - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
BB - Brigitte Bardot (actress) / Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation)
BBB - blood-brain barrier - Better Business Bureau
BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
BBQ - Barbeque
BC - Before Christ / Blind Copy (in emailers) / British Columbia / Boston College
BCC - Blind Carbon Copy
BCE - Before Common Era - British Columbia Electric - Banque Centrale Européenne
BCER - British Columbia Electric Railway
BCS - Bowl Championship Series (US college football)
BDA - British Dental Association
BDFL - Benevolent Dictator For Life
BDU - battle-dress uniform
BFE - Beyond/Butt F*****' Egypt (colloquial for "quite far away")
BIT - Bilateral Investment Treaty
BJT - bipolar junction transistors
BMI - Broadcast Music Incorporated / Body mass index
BMW - Bayerische Motoren Werke/Bavarian Motor Works
BMX - Bicycle Motor Cross
BNS - Bank of Nova Scotia
BNSF - Burlington Northern Santa Fe
BO2K - Back Orifice 2000
BOAC - British Overseas Airways Corporation (predecessor of British Airways)
BOFH - Bastard operator from hell
BOP - Balance of Payments
BOT - Balance of Trade
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 / Birmingham Small Arms Company (motorcycles)
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)
BSP - Between-show Promotion
BSP - Binary Space Partition
BSP - Board Support Packages
BSP - Business Sponsored
BST - bovine somatatotrophin hormone - Blended Sales Tax - British Summer Time
BT - British Telecommunications plc
BTO - Built to Order
BTU - British thermal unit
BTW - By the way
BWR - boiling-water reactor
BYOB - Bring your own beverages/bottle
BYU - Brigham Young University
CAIR - Council on American-Islamic Relations
CB - citizens' band radio
CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
CBM - Canadian Baptist Ministries - Commodore Business Machines
CC - carbon copy
CCCP - Central Committee of the Communist Party
CCD - charge-coupled device
CD - Compact disc
CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Control Data Corporation
CE - Common (or Christian) Era (cf. AD)
CEO - Chief executive officer
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
CFSP - Common Foreign and Secruity Policy
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency - Culinary Institute of America
CID - Criminal Investigations Department
CIO - Chief information officer - Congress of Industrial Organizations
CIS - Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union) / Canadian Interuniversity Sport
CJC - Canadian Jewish Congress
CLEC - Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
CLI - command line interface/interpreter
CMHC - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
CMM - Capability Maturity Model
CMOS - complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor
CMR - Coaxial Main Rotors (helicopter type)
CMYK - cyan magenta yellow key (colour model)
CN - Canadian National
CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CNN - Cable News Network
CNR - Canadian National Railway
CO - Central Office (Phone Company office or POP)
COD - cash on delivery
CPA - Certified Public Accountant
CPAC - Conservative Political Action Conference - Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel
CPPCC - Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
CPSU - Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CPU - central processing unit
CQD - come quick, distress (?)
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
CSI - multiple meanings
CSICOP - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
CSIS - Canadian Security Intelligence Service - Center For Strategic & International Studies
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets - content-scrambling system - cross site scripting
CTSS - Compatible Time-Sharing System
CUPE - Canadian Union of Public Employees
CUPW - Canadian Union of Postal Workers
CV - see entry
CVR - Cockpit voice recorder
CWC - Chemical Weapons Convention

D,E,F

d/b/a - doing business as
DC - da capo - Italian Democrazia Cristiana - direct current - District of Columbia - Douglas Aircraft Company - Dublin Core - duty cycle
DDA - digital differential analyzer
DDD - digital digital digital (CD quality) - Data Display Debugger
DDoS - distributed denial of service
DDR - Dance Dance Revolution - Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany, English abbr.: GDR, qv.)
DDS - Doctor of Dental Surgery
DDT - dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (insecticide) - Dynamic Debugging Tool (computing)
DEA - Drug Enforcement Agency
DEC - Digital Equipment Corporation - Disasters Emergency Committee - Department of Environmental Conservation
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
DIP (sometimes "dip") - dual in-line package (electronics)
DIY - do it yourself
DMA - direct memory access (computing)
DMD - Doctor of Dental Medicine
DMZ - demilitarized zone
DNA - DeoxyriboNucleic Acid - Douglas Adams
DND - Do Not Disturb - Department of National Defense
DOA - Dead On Arrival
DPCO - double-pole change over
DPDT - double-pole double-throw
DPRK - Democratic People's Republic of Korea
DPST - double-pole single-throw
DRA - Democratic Republic of America
DRAM - dynamic random access memory (computing)
DRC - Democratic Republic of the Congo
DREA - Defense Research Establishment Atlantic
DRL - daytime running lights - Dorman Roberts Ltd.
DTE - Down to earth
DTL - diode-transistor logic (electronics)
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)
DVM - Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
DWI - Driving While Intoxicated/Impaired - Dance With Intensity - Danish West Indies - Diffusion-weighted imaging - Direct water injection - Disaster Welfare Inquiry - Drinking Water Inspectorate
EAFUS - "Everything" Added to Food in the United States (FDA list)
EBCDIC (some say "eb-suh-dik") - Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (computing)
EBE - extraterrestrial biological entity
EBW - exploding bridgewire
ECL - emitter coupled logic (electronics)
ECS - Extended Chip Set (computing)
EDS - Electronic Data Systems
EEC - European Economic Community (predecessor of the EU, qv.)
EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation
e.g. - example gratis (Latin, roughly "for example", "for instance")
ELF (sometimes pronounced "elf") - Earth Liberation Front - Endangered Language Fund - Eritrean Liberation Front - Executable and Linkable Format - Extremely Low Frequencies
EMF - electromotive force
EMO - emergency-measures organisation
EMP - electromagnetic pulse
ENE - east northeast
EPL - English Premier League
ERA - earned run average - Engineering Research Associates - Equal Rights Amendment
ERCIM - European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
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
FAAQ - Frequently Asked and Anticipated Questions (see also FAQ)
FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization
FAQ (sometimes pronounced "fak") - Frequently Asked Questions
FASEB - Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation
FCC - Federal Communications Commission
FCM - Fogarty's Cove Music - Federation of Canadian Municipalities
FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Flight data recorder
FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency
FIU - Florida International University
FLIR - forward looking infrared (sensor)
FLK - Funny-Looking Kid (medical diagnosis in-joke)
FM - frequency modulation (electronics)
FMSF False Memory Syndrome Foundation
FPS - First person shooter (computer/video games)
FSF - Free Software Foundation
FST - Finlands Svenska Television (Finland's Swedish-language television)
FTL - Faster Than Light
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
FTSE - Financial Times Stock Exchange
FWI - French West Indies
FWIW - For What It's Worth
FYI - For Your Information
FYROM - Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

G,H,I

GCD - see entry
GCF - greatest common factor
GDP - gross domestic product
GDR - German Democratic Republic
GE - General Electric - Genetic Engineering (see GM)
GEOS - Graphical Environment Operating System
GEV - Ground Effect Vehicle
GFCI - ground fault circuit interrupter (aka GFI)
GFDL - GNU Free Documentation License
GFI - ground fault interrupter (aka GFCI)
GFY - Internet chat acronym, "good for you", or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context
GHB - gamma-hydroxybutyrate
GI - galvanised iron - government issue - gastro-intestinal
GL - Grenade Launcher
GM - GameMaster (role-playing terminology) / Genetically Modified / General Motors / Guru Meditation
GmbH - Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (German, roughy "Inc" or "Ltd")
GMO - Genetically modified organism
GOP - Grand Old Party (United States Republican Party)
GPIB - General-Purpose Instrumentation/Interface Bus
GPL - General Public License
GPS - Global Positioning System
GRAS - Generally Regarded as Safe (FDA list)
GST - Goods and Services Tax (Canada)
GSOH - Good sense of humour
GT - Gran Turismo
GUI - graphical user interface
GUT - grand unification theory
HCF - highest common factor
HDD - hard disk drive - high-density disk
HEPA - High-efficiency particulate air (filter)
HKS - hyperkinetic syndrome
HMCE - Her 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 Instrumentation/Interface Bus - First implementation of GPIB later standardised and now known as IEEE-488.
HPV - Human papilloma virus
HQ - Headquarters
HRH - His/Her Royal Highness
HSS - High-Speed Steel
HST - see entry
HSV - herpes simplex virus - hue saturation value (colour model)
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HVP - hydrolized vegetable protein - HarborView Properties - High Vacuum Process
IAAF - International Association of Athletics Federations
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
ICP - Insane Clown Posse
IDF - Israel Defence Forces
ie - id est (Latin, roughly "that is")
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IFO - Identified flying object
IHR - Institute for Historical Review
IIRC - If I recall correctly
IIT - Indian Institutes of Technology
ILC - International Law Commission
ILO - International Labour Organisation
IMF - International Monetary Fund
IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
IMO - International Maritime Organization - In My Opinion
IMRI - Industrial Membrane Research Institute - Information Management Research Institute - International Market Research Information - Institut pour le Management de la Recherche et de l'Innovation - intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging
INC - Iraqi National Congress
INLA - Irish National Liberation Army
INRI - Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum (Latin, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews)
IP - Intellectual property - Internet Protocol
IPN - Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (Institute for National Memory)
IQ - Intelligence Quotient
IR - Infrared
IRA - Individual Retirement Account (legally, Individual Retirement Arrangement) - 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)

J,K,L

JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association
JCS - Joint Chiefs of Staff
JDL - Jewish Defense League
JFK - John Fitzgerald Kennedy or the airport named after him.
JRA - Japanese Red Army
JW - Jehovah's Witnesses
KCK - Kansas City, Kansas
KCMO - Kansas City, Missouri (pronounced "K-C-Moe")
KFC - Kentucky Fried Chicken
KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security - Soviet Intelligence Service
KIA - Killed In Action
KKK - Ku Klux Klan
LA - Los Angeles
LANL - Los Alamos National Laboratory
LATA - Local Access Transport Area
LBGT - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
LBJ - Lyndon Baines Johnson - Lady Bird Johnson - Lightbulb joke
LCM - least common multiple
LDAP (usually "el-dap") - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
LDS - Latter Day Saint
LEC - Local Exchange Carrier
LED - Light Emitting Diode
LGB - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
LGM - little green men
LIFO - Last In First Out
LLC - limited liability company
LLP - limited liability partnership
LMAO - Laughing my a** off.
LMS - London Mathematical Society
LNG - liquefied natural gas
LOL - Laughing Out Loud
LPG - liquefied petroleum gas
LSE - London School of Economics - London Stock Exchange
LSI - Large-Scale Integration

M,N,O

MAA - Mathematical Association of America
MBTA - Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
MCD - minimal cerebral dysfunction
MDF - main distribution frame - medium-density fibreboard
MG - Machine gun - Morris Garage
MHz - Megahertz
MIA - Missing in action
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey)
MITS - see entry
MLA - member of legislative assembly
MLB - Major League Baseball
MLS - Major League Soccer
MMU - Manned Maneuvering Unit
MND - Motor Neurone Disease
MO - modus operandi
MP - Member of Parliament - military police - magic points
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)
MTS - Michigan Terminal/Timesharing System - multichannel television sound - Multi-Technical Services
MTV - Music TeleVision; MainosTeleVisio (Finnish commercial TV company)
n/a - not available / Not applicable
NAACP ("N double-A CP") - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NASDAQ - National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System
NAIRU - Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
NB - nota bene - New Brunswick
NBA - National Basketball Association
NBC - Nuclear/Biological/Chemical - National Broadcasting Corporation
NC - network computer - non-consensual - normally closed - North Carolina
NCAA ("NC double A") - National Collegiate Athletic Association
NDP - New Democratic Party
NE - northeast
NET - National Educational Television
NFER - National Foundation for Educational Research
NFC - National Football Conference
NFL - National Football League
Nfld - Newfoundland
NG - natural gas - next generation
NGO - non-governmental organization
NHANES - National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
NHL - National Hockey League
NIH - National Institutes of Health - Not Invented Here
NIEHS - Natinal Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
NIMH - nickel metal hydride - National Institute of Medical Herbalists - National Institute of Mental Health
NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
NLP - Natural Language Processing or Neuro Linguistic Programming
NNE - north northeast
NNW - north northwest
NO - normally open
NORML - National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
NPC - Non-Player Character (roleplaying terminology) / National Provincial Championship (New Zealand rugby competition)
NPD - Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German)
NPOV - Neutral point of view
NPR - National Public Radio
NRTA - National Retired Teachers Association - National Rat Terrier Association - Northwest Regional Transmission Association - National Retail Tenants Association
NSA - National Security Agency
NTSC - National Television Standards Committee
NW - northwest
NWFZ - Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone
NYSE - New York Stock Exchange
NZ - New Zealand
OAC - on approved credit
OAU - Organization for African Unity
OBE - Officer of the Order of the British Empire
OCR - optical character recognition
OCS - see entry
OED - Oxford English Dictionary
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer
OJ - orange juice / O. J. Simpson
OO - object oriented - over & out
OOP - object-oriented programming
OOS - Occupational overuse syndrome
OSB - oriented-strand board
OSI - Office of Strategic Influence / Ontario Swine Improvement / Open Source Initiative / Open systems interconnect
OSS - Organization of Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
OTOH - On The Other Hand

P,Q,R,S

PABX - Private Automated Branch Exchange (company phone system)
PBS - Public Broadcasting Service
PBX - Private Branch Exchange (company phone system)
PC - Personal Computer; Player Character (roleplaying terminology); Politically Correct(ness)
PCB - see entry
PCC - Presidents Conference Committee
PCMCIA - Personal Computer Memory Card Interface Association / People Can't Memorise Computer-Industry Acronyms
PCP - phencyclidine - pneumocystis carinii pneumonia - Probabilistically Checkable Proof
PDA - Public display of affection - personal digital assistant - push-down automaton
PDF - portable document format
PDN - pull-down network
PDQ - pretty damn quick (?)
PDRY - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
PET - positron emission tomography - Personal Electronic Transactor - Pierre Elliott Trudeau
PETA (often "pee-tah") - pentaerythritol triacrylate - People Eating Tasty Animals - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
PFO - Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
PIN - Personal identication Number
PINF - People In Need Foundation (Czech charitable organization)
PIPA - Program on International Policy Attitudes
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 - Papua New Guinea
PNP - Partido Nuevo Progresista - plug 'n' play - positive negative positive
POP - Point of Presence - Post Office Protocol
PPP - Point-to-Point Protocol / Purchasing Power Parity
PRC - People's Republic of China
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
PTUI (sometime "pa-too-ey") - plain-text user interface
PUG - PET Users Group
PUN - pull-up network
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)
PWR - pressurized water reactor
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
QSL - Québec sign language
qv - Latin "quod vide" (which see)
R&B - Rhythm and Blues
RA - right ascension
RAC - Royal Automobile Club (in the UK), renamed RAC plc in 2002
RAF - Royal Air Force; Red Army Faction
RAM - random-access memory
RBI - Runs batted in
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
REAM - Retired Educators Association of Minnesota
RFC - request for comments
RGB - red green blue (colour model)
RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America
RIP - Rest in Peace (requiescant in pace)
RMS - Royal Mail Ship (eg RMS Titanic) - Root-mean-square - Richard M. Stallman - Rate-monotonic scheduling
RNA - Ribonucleic Acid
ROC - Republic of China
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/Propelled Grenade
rpm - Revolutions Per Minute; Red Hat Package Manager
RPN - Reverse Polish Notation
rps - Revolutions Per Second
RRSP - Registered Retirement Savings Plan (Canada; roughly equivalent to the IRA in the USA)
RSI - Repetitive strain injury
RSS - Really Simple Syndication
RTF - Rich Text Format
RTL - resistor-transistor logic
RUC - Royal Ulster Constabulary
SA - Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment, forerunner and rival of SS)
SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder
SALT - Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
SAR - Search and Rescue - special administrative region
SAS - Special Air Service; Scandinavian Airline Systems
SAT - formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test; now known solely by the initials
SATB - soprano alto tenor bass
SBS - Special Boat Service; Special Broadcasting Service
SDI - see entry
SDP - Social Democratic Party (European politics)
SE - southeast
SEC - Securities and Exchange Commission / Southeastern Conference
SF - San Francisco - science fiction
SGML - Standard Generalised Markup Language
SI - Système International - Socialist International - Sports Illustrated
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
SMU - Southern Methodist University
SNCF - Société National des Chemins de Fer Français (French Railways)
SOE - Special Operations Executive (WW2 British organization)
SOL - S**t Out of Luck
SOV - Single occupant vehicle
SPCO - single-pole change over
SPDT - single-pole double-throw
SPQR - Senatus Populus Que Romanus
SPST - single-pole single-throw
SRAM ("ess-ram") - Static Random Access Memory
SRB - solid rocket booster
SS - Schutzstaffel (elite guard) - Secret Service - Spanish ship - stainless steel - Stockholm Skins - Super Sport
SSDD - same shit, different day - single-sided double-density
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
STP - standard temperature and pressure
SUB - student-union building
SVO - subject, verb, object
SW - southwest
SWAPO - South West African People's Organization

T,U,V

TATT - Tired All The Time (medical diagnosis in-joke)
TCG - Trusted Computing Group - Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Gemisi
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol - trichlorophenol
TCU - Texas Christian University
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
TLC - tender loving care - The Learning Channel
TLD - top-level domain
TM - trademark - Turing machine
TMR - Twin Main Rotors (helicopter type)
TSN - The Sports Network - The Sporting News
TSR - see entry
TTL - Transistor-transistor logic
TTYL - Internet chat acryonym, "talk to you later"
TUI - text user interface
TUNS - Technical University of Nova Scotia
TWAT - The War Against Terror
UBC - united baptist church - University of British Columbia
UÇK - acronym for two Albanian guerilla movements
UCLA - University of California Los Angeles\
UEFA - Union of European Football Associations
UFO - Unidentified Flying Object
UHF - ultra high frequency
UHMW - ultra-high molecular weight
UK - United Kingdom
UL - Underwriters Laboratories
UN - United Nations
UNCF - United Negro College Fund
UNHCR - United Nations High Commission for Refugees
UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas
UNSM - Union of Nova Scotian Municipalities
UPI - United Press International
UPS - United Parcel Service - uninterruptible power supply
UPU - Universal Postal Union
URI - uniform resource identifier
URL - uniform resource locator
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
USB - Universal Serial Bus
USC - United States Code / University of Southern California / University of South Carolina
USDOE - United States Department of Energy
USGS - United States Geological Survey
USS - United States ship - sometimes meaningless (see Star Trek)
USSR - United Soviet Socialist Republics (ie. Soviet Union)
UV - ultraviolet
VAT - value-added tax
VHF - very high frequency
VIP - very important person
VLSI - Very-large-scale integration
VNS - vagus nerve stimulation
VP - vice-president
VSO - Voluntary Services Overseas
VTOL - Vertical Takeoff & Landing
VV - Via Voice - Village Voice

W,X,Y,Z

W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
WB - Warner Brothers
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
WOLOG - without loss of generality
WRT - with respect to
WSJ - Wall Street Journal
WSW - west southwest
WTC - World Trade Center
WTO - World Trade Organization
WW1 (or WWI) - World War One
WW2 (or WWII) - World War Two
WWE - World Wrestling Entertainment
WWF - World Wildlife Fund; World Wrestling Federation
WWW - World Wide Web
YM - Your Magazine (originally Young Miss, later Young & Modern)
YMCA - Young Men's Christian Association
YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary
YWCA - Young Women's Christian Association
ZOPFAN - Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality

External link

Acronymfinder