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Acronym List

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

AA - (i) Alcoholics Anonymous - Automobile Association
AAA - (p) American Automobile Association ("Triple-A") - anti-aircraft artillery - Administration, Authorization, and Authentication
AAD - (i) analogue analogue digital - Australian Antarctic Division
AARP - (i) formerly American Association of Retired Persons, but now officially known only by the initials
AAS - (i) American Astronomical Society; pronounced "Double-A S"

AB

ABA - (i) American Bar Association / American Basketball Association / Australian Broadcasting Authority
ABB - (i) ASEA Brown Boveri (Swiss-Swedish multinational company)
ABBA - (a) Agneta, Benny, Björn, Anni-Frid (the Swedish pop group)
ABC - (i) 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
ABET - (a) Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
ABL - (i) American Basketball League
ABLE - (a) Airborne law enforcement (police air support unit)
ABM - (i) anti-ballistic missile - Asynchronous Balanced Mode - automated banking machine
ABN - (i) Australian Business Number - a number issued by the Australian government as registration of a business (used for taxation purposes)
ABS - (i) acrylonitrile butadiene styrene - anti-lock braking system

AC

AC - (i) adriamycin-cyclophosphamide (chemotherapy) - alternating current - Anonymous Coward - ante christum - air conditioning - Albert Champion - Associazione Calcio (Italian, "football (soccer) club")
ACC - (i) Automatic Climate Control - Atlantic Coast Conference - Air Combat Command
ACCAC - (a) Awdurdod Cymwysterau, Cwricwlwm ac Asesu Cymru (Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales)
ACE - (a) Automatic Computing Engine - Air Combat Emulator (computer game)
ACES - (a) Aerolineas Centrales de Colombia
ACF - (i) American Culinary Federation
ACK - (p) Acknowledge (telecommunications) (cf. NAK)
ACL - (i) Access Control List / anterior cruciate ligament
ACLU - (i) American Civil Liberties Union
ACM - (i) see entry
ACN - (i) Australian Company Number - a number issued by the Australian government as registration of a company (limited liability) in Australia.
ACORN - (i) Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
ACS - (i) American Chemical Society, American Cancer Society, Association of Caribbean States, Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE ACS)
ACTU - (i) Australian Council of Trade Unions

AD-AE

AD - (i) Latin, Anno Domini ("In the year of our Lord")
ADA - (i) American Dental Association / Americans with Disabilities Act (but see also the similar, but non-acronymic, Ada as in Ada programming language)
ADC - (i) Apple Display Connector
ADD - (i) analogue digital digital - Attention-Deficit Disorder
ADP - (i) Adenosine diphosphate
ADHD - (i) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
ADHS - (i) attention-deficit hyperactivity syndrome
ADL - (i) Anti-Defamation League
ADM - (i) Archer Daniels Midland
ADS - (a/i) Astrophysics Data System - Attention Deficit Syndrome
ADT - (i) Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
AEF - (i) American Expeditionary Force

AF-AG

AFAIC - (i) As far as I'm concerned
AFAICT - (i) As far as I can tell
AFAIK - (i) As far as I know
AFAIR - (i) As far as I remember/recall
AFC - (i) American Football Conference - Asian Football Confederation
AFJ - (i) April Fool's Joke
AFK - (i) Away from keyboard (Internet chat abbreviation)
AFL - (i) American Federation of Labor - American Football League - Arena Football League - Australian Football League
AG - (i) Aktiengesellschaft (German for incorporated)
AGA - (a/i) AB Gas-accumulator ("ah-gah", Swedish company) - Advanced Graphics Architecture
AGB - (i) Internal Nintendo initialism for Game Boy Advance.
AGC - (i) Apollo Guidance Computer - Automatic Gain Control
AGM - (i) Annual General Meeting
AGP - (i) Accelerated Graphics Port

AI-AM

AI - (i) Amnesty International - Artificial insemination - Artificial intelligence
AIA - (i) Aerospace Industry Association
AIC - (i) African Independent Church
AICMFP - (i) and I claim my five pounds
AIDS - (a) Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
AIM - (i) many, including AOL Instant Messenger; see entry
AIPAC - (i) American Israel Public Affairs Committee
aka - (i) also known as
AKDT - (i) Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time (UTC-8 hours)
AKST - (i) Alaska Standard Time (UTC-9 hours)
AL - Anno Lucis, the "Year of Light" in Masonic tradition. Most often seen on plaques bearing the founding dates of buildings, in years AD and years AL.
ALAP - (a) as long/late as possible
ALGOL - (a) Algorithmic language
ALS - (i) Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
AM - (i) many, including Amplitude modulation; see entry
AMA - (i) American Medical Association
AMD - (i) Advanced Micro Devices (U.S. company)
AMP - (i) Adenosine monophosphate
AMRAAM - (a) Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile
AMS - (i) American Mathematical Society

AN-AR

ANA - (a) All Nippon Airways, anti-nuclear anti-body
ANC - (i) African National Congress
ANSI - (a) American National Standards Institute
ANZAC - (a) Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
AOL - (i) America Online
AP - (i) Associated Press - Advanced Placement
APB - (i) All points bulletin (police jargon)
apm - (i) Advanced Power Management
ARSC - (i) Artic Region Supercomputing Center.

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

B2B - (i) Business-to-business electronic commerce
B2C - (i) Business-to-consumer electronic commerce
B2E - (i) Business-to-employee electronic commerce
B&W - (i) black and white - Babcock & Wilcox - Bowers & Wilkins

BA-BC

BALCO - (a) Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
BAR - (a) British American Racing - Browning Automatic Rifle - Buy-American restrictions
BART - (a) Bay Area Rapid Transit
BASE - (a) as in BASE jumping - Building, Antenna, Span, Earth(form)
BASF - (i) Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (German chemicals company)
BASIC - (a) Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, acronym was added later, originally it was simply Basic
BATF - (i) U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
BB - (i) Brigitte Bardot (actress) - Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation)
BBB - (i) blood-brain barrier - Better Business Bureau
BBC - (i) British Broadcasting Corporation
BBQ - (i) Barbeque
BC - (i) Before Christ - Before Common era - Blind Copy (in emailers) - British Columbia - Boston College
BCC - (i) Blind Carbon Copy
BCCI - (i) Board of Control for Cricket in India
BCD - (i) Binary-coded decimal
BCE - (i) Before Common Era - British Columbia Electric - Banque Centrale Européenne
BCER - (i) British Columbia Electric Railway
BCPL - (i) BCPL programming language (progenitor of C)
BCS - (i) Bowl Championship Series (US college football)

baa british airport authority

BD-BN

BDA - (i) British Dental Association
BDFL - (i) Benevolent Dictator For Life
BDNF - (i) Brain-derived neurotrophic factor
BDOS - (a) Basic disk operating system; part of CP/M
BDU - (i) battle-dress uniform
BFE - (i) Beyond/Butt/Bum F*****' Egypt (colloquial for "quite far away")
BIOS - (a) basic input/output system
BIST - (a) Built-in self-test
BIT - (i) Bilateral Investment Treaty - Built-in test
BJT - (i) bipolar junction transistors
BLUI - (a/i) Body Language User Interface
BMCC - (i) Borough of Manhattan Community College
BME - (i) Biomedical Engineering
BMI - (i) Broadcast Music Incorporated - Body mass index
BMW - (i) Bayerische Motoren Werke / Bavarian Motor Works
BMX - (i) Bicycle/Bike Moto(r) Cross
BNF - (i) Backus-Naur Form (computing)
BNS - (i) Bank of Nova Scotia
BNSF - (i) Burlington Northern Santa Fe

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

BSA - (i) Boy Scouts of America - Birmingham Small Arms (motorcycles company)
BSD - (i) Berkeley Software Distribution (distinct from BSoD)
BSE - (i) Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow disease
BSL - (i) British Sign Language
BSoD - (i) Blue screen of death (distinct from BSD)
BSP - (i) Between-show Promotion - Binary Space Partitioning - Board Support Packages - (p) Business Sponsored
BST - (i) Binary search tree - Blended Sales Tax - Bovine somatotropin - British Summer Time
BT - (i) British Telecommunications plc
BTO - (i) Built to Order
BTU - (i) British thermal unit
BTW - (i) By the way
BWARS - (a) Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society
BWR - (i) boiling-water reactor
BYOB - (i) Bring your own beverages/bottle
BYOC - (i) Bring your own computer. Play on BYOB.
BYU - (i) Brigham Young University

C

CA-CD

CAC - (i) California Association of Criminalists
CAD - (a) Computer Aided Design - computer aided dispatch
CAIR - (i) Council on American-Islamic Relations
CALABARZON - (p) a region in the Philippines: Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon (not an acronym in the strictest sense)
CAMRA - (a) The Campaign for Real Ale
CANDU - (p) from "Canada Deuterium Uranium", a nuclear reactor design
CARE - (a) Cooperative for Aid and Relief Everywhere (originally C.A.R.E. - Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe)
CAW - Canadian Auto Workers trade union
CB - (i) citizens' band radio
CBE - (i) Commander of the Order of the British Empire
CBC - (i) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - Cipher Block Chaining
CBM - (i) many, including Canadian Baptist Ministries and Commodore Business Machines; see entry
CBT - (i) Cognitive behavior therapy
CC - (i) many, including carbon copy; see entry
CCCP - (i) Cyrillic for SSSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) - Central Committee of the Communist Party
CCD - (i) charge-coupled device
CCRAp - (a) Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party
CD - (i) many, including Compact disc; see entry
CDC - (i) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Control Data Corporation
CDF - (i) California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

CE-CH

CE - (i) [many meanings, including Christian/Common Era (cf. AD); see entry]
CENTO - (a) Central Treaty Organization (Baghdad Pact)
CEO - (i) Chief executive officer
CEPT - (a/i) Conference Européenne des administration des Postes et des Télécommunications (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations)
CERN - (a) Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire
CERT - (a) Computer Emergency Response Team
cf. - (i) Latin, confer ("compare", or "see also")
CF - Canadian Forces
CFA - (i) Cat Fanciers' Association - Chartered financial analyst - Colour filtering array - Country Fire Authority
CFG - (i) Context-free grammar - Control flow graph
CFO - (i) Chief financial officer
CFSP - (i) Common Foreign and Security Policy
CGT - (i) Capital gains tax
CHI - Computer-human Interaction
CHP - (i) California Highway Patrol

CI-CM

CIA - (i) Central Intelligence Agency - Culinary Institute of America
CIB - (i) Complete in box (of items on Internet auction/trading listings)
CIBC - (i) once the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
CICS - (a) Customer Information Control System (IBM mainframe software)
CID - (i) Criminal Investigations Department
CIO - (i) Chief information officer - Congress of Industrial Organizations
CIS - (i) Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union) - Canadian Interuniversity Sport
CISB - (i) Complete in sealed box (of items on Internet auction/trading listings)
CIWS - Close-in weapon system
CJ - (i) Criminal Justice
CJC - (i) Canadian Jewish Congress
CLEC - (i) Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
CLEMARS - (a) California Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Radio System
CLI - (i) command line interface/interpreter
CMHC - (i) Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
CMM - (i) Capability Maturity Model
CMOS - (i) complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor - Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
CMR - (i) Coaxial Main Rotors (helicopter type)
CMYK - (i) cyan magenta yellow key (colour model)

CN-CQ

CN - (i) Canadian National
CND - (i) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CNN - (i) Cable News Network - Cellular nonlinear network
CNR - (i) Canadian National Railway
CO - (i) many, including Central Office (phone company); see entry; (ii) Commanding Officer
COO - (i) Chief Operting Officer
c/o - (i) care of (postal code indicating temporary address change)
COBOL (a) - Common Business-Oriented Language
COD - (i) cash on delivery
COLA - (a) cost of living adjustment - comp.os.linux.announce
CONCACAF - (a) Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football
CONMEBOL - (p) Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation)
CPA - (i) Certified Public Accountant
COSER - (i) COoperative SERvice
CPAC - (i) Conservative Political Action Conference - Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel
CPPCC - (i) Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
CPR - (i) Canadian Pacific Railway - cardiopulmonary resuscitation
CPSU - (i) Communist Party of the Soviet Union
CPU - (i) central processing unit
CQD - (i) come quick, distress (?)

CR-CW

CRC - (i) Christian Reformed Church - Cyclic redundancy check - Chemical Rubber Company
CREB - (a) Cyclic AMP-response element binding (protein)
CREEP - (a) Committee to Re-elect the President
CRM - (i) Customer Relationship Management - Cardiac Rhythm Management
CRT - (i) cathode ray tube - Chinese remainder theorem - Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
CRTC - (i) Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
CSA - (i) Confederate States of America - Canadian Standards Association - Canadian Space Agency - Child Support Agency - Czech Airlines - Community-supported agriculture
CSI - (i) see entry
CSICOP - (i) Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
CSIS - (i) Canadian Security Intelligence Service - Center For Strategic & International Studies
CSS - (i) Cascading Style Sheets - content-scrambling system - cross site scripting - Confederate States Ship
CTO - (i) Chief technical officer
CTSS - (i) Compatible Time-Sharing System
CUNY - (a) City University of New York (usually pronounced "CUE-knee")
CUPE - (i) Canadian Union of Public Employees
CUPW - (i) Canadian Union of Postal Workers
CV - (i) many, including curriculum vitae (resumé); see entry
CVR - (i) Cockpit voice recorder
CVS - (i) Concurrent Versions System
CWC - (i) Chemical Weapons Convention

D

D&D - (i) Dungeons and Dragons.

DA-DE

DAQ - (p) Data acquisition
DART - (a) Dublin Area Rapid Transit
DASL - (i) DASL programming language Datapoint's Advanced Systems Language
d/b/a - (i) doing business as
DBE - (i) Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
DC - (i) da capo - Italian Democrazia Cristiana - direct current - District of Columbia - Douglas Aircraft Company - Dublin Core - duty cycle
DD - (i) many, including dear daughter (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards); see entry
DDA - (i) digital differential analyzer
DDD - (i) digital digital digital (CD mastering) - Data Display Debugger
DDoS - (i) distributed denial of service
DDR - (i) Dance Dance Revolution - Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany, English abbr.: GDR, qv.) - Double Data Rate
DDS - (i) Doctor of Dental Surgery
DDT - (i) dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (insecticide) - Dynamic Debugging Tool (computing)
DEA - (i) Drug Enforcement Agency
DEC - (a/i) Digital Equipment Corporation - Disasters Emergency Committee - Department of Environmental Conservation
DECT - (a) Digital European Cordless Telephone

DH-DP

DH - (i) Designated hitter - dear husband (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards)
DHS - (i) Department of Homeland Security.
DHSS - (i) Department of Health and Social Security
DIMM - (a) Dual In-line Memory Module (computing)
DINK - (a) Double income, no kids
DIY - (i) do it yourself
DMA - (i) direct memory access (computing)
DMD - (i) Doctor of Dental Medicine
DMT - (i) Dimethyltryptamine
DMV - (i) Department of Motor Vehicles
DMZ - (i) demilitarized zone
DNA - (i) DeoxyriboNucleic Acid - Douglas Adams
DND - (i) Do Not Disturb - Department of National Defense
DOA - (i) Dead On Arrival - Dead or Alive
DOI - (a) Digital Object Identifier
DOM - (i) Document Object Model
DOS - (a) Density of State - Disk Operating System - Denial of Service (DoS, cf. DDoS)
DPCO - (i) double-pole change over
DPDT - (i) double-pole double-throw
DPRK - (i) Democratic People's Republic of Korea
DPST - (i) double-pole single-throw

DR-DW

DRA - (i) Democratic Republic of America
DRAM - (a) dynamic random access memory ("dee-ram") (computing)
DRC - (i) Democratic Republic of the Congo
DREA - (i) Defense Research Establishment Atlantic
DRL - (i) daytime running lights - Dorman Roberts Ltd.
DSRV - (i) Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle - Deaf Sports Recreation Victoria
DS - (i) dear husband, dear daughter, dear son (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards)
DTE - (i) Down to earth, or Data Terminal Equipment
DTL - (i) diode-transistor logic (electronics)
DTRA - (i) Defence Threat Reduction Agency
DIP - (a) dual in-line package (electronics)
DUI - (i) 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 - (i) Digital Versatile Disk (was Digital Video Disk)
DVM - (i) Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
DWI - (i) Driving While Intoxicated/Impaired - Dance With Intensity - Danish West Indies - Diffusion-weighted imaging - Direct water injection - Disaster Welfare Inquiry - Drinking Water Inspectorate

E

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

EA-EM

EAFUS - (i) "Everything" Added to Food in the United States (FDA list)
EBCDIC - (a/i) Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (pronounced "eb-see-dik") (cf. BCD)
EBE - (i) extraterrestrial biological entity
EBW - (i) exploding bridgewire
ECL - (i) emitter coupled logic (electronics)
ECS - (i) Extended Chip Set (computing)
ECT - (i) Electroconvulsive therapy
EDS - (i) Electronic Data Systems
EEC - (i) European Economic Community (predecessor of the EU, qv.)
EEG - (i) Electroencephalogram
EFF - (i) Electronic Frontier Foundation
e.g. - (i) example gratis (Latin, roughly "for example", "for instance")
EKG - (i) Electrocardiogram (from German, Elektrokardiogramm)
ELF (sometimes pronounced "elf") - (i) Earth Liberation Front - Endangered Language Fund - Eritrean Liberation Front - Executable and Linkable Format - Extremely Low Frequencies
EMF - (i) electromotive force
EMO - (i) emergency-measures organisation
EMP - (i) electromagnetic pulse
EMT - (i) emergency medical technician

EN-EV

ENE - (i) east northeast
EPCOT - (a) Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow
EPL - (i) English Premier League
ERA - (i) earned run average - Engineering Research Associates - Equal Rights Amendment
ERCIM - (i) European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
ESA - (i) European Space Agency
ESE - (i) east southeast
ESP - (i) Extra-Sensory Perception
ESU - (i) Emergency services unit
ETA - (i) estimated time of arrival - Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna
etc - (i) latin "et cetera" (and remaining)
ETLA - (i) Extended TLA
EU - (i) European Union
EULA - (i) End-User License Agreement
EVA - (i) extra-vehicular activity

F

FA-FI

FAAQ - (i) Frequently Asked and Anticipated Questions (cf. FAQ)
FAD - (i) Flavin adenine dinucleotide
FAO - (i) Food and Agriculture Organization
FAQ - (a/i) Frequently Asked Questions (sometimes pronounced "fak")
FARC - (a) Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
FASEB - (i) Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
FBI - (i) Federal Bureau of Investigation
FCC - (i) Federal Communications Commission
FCM - (i) Fogarty's Cove Music - Federation of Canadian Municipalities
FDA - (i) Food and Drug Administration (U.S.)
FDR - (i) Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Flight data recorder
FEMA - (a/i) Federal Emergency Management Agency
FF - (i) Final Fantasy
FFT (i) Fast Fourier Transform - Final Fantasy Tactics
FIDE - (a) The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (World Chess Foundation)
FIFA - (a) Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Association Football Federation)
FIFO - (a) First In First Out
FIS - (a/i) Federation Internationale de Ski (International Ski Federation)
FIU - (i) Florida International University

FL-FY

FLAC - (a/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

G3 - (i) many, including Heckler und Koch G3; see entry
G4 - (i) Generation Four PowerPC microprocessor
G5 - (i) Generation Five PowerPC microprocessor

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

GL - (i) Grenade Launcher - Graphics Language
GLUT - (a/i) OpenGL Utility Toolkit.
GLAAD - (a) Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
GM - (i) GameMaster (role-playing terminology) / Genetically Modified / General Motors / Guru Meditation
GmbH - (i) Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (German, roughy "Inc" or "Ltd")
GMO - (i) Genetically modified organism
GMT - (i) Greenwich Mean Time
GNOME - (a) GNU Network Object Model Environment
GNU - (a) GNU's Not Unix
GOMER - (a) Get Out of My Emergency Room (derogatory reference to hypochondriac patients)
GOP - (i) Grand Old Party (United States Republican Party)
GPG - (i) GNU Privacy Guard
GPIB - (i) General-Purpose Instrumentation/Interface Bus
GPL - (i) General Public License
GPS - (i) Global Positioning System
GRAS - (i) Generally Regarded as Safe (FDA list)
grep - (a) (search) globally for regular expression, print (lines)
GSOH - (i) Good sense of humour
GST - (i) Goods and Services Tax (in Canada, Australia, etc
GT - (i) Gran Turismo - Grand Touring
GUI - (a) Graphical User Interface (pronounced goo-ey)
Gulag - (p) Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei
GUT - (i) grand unification theory

H

HA-HM

HAI - (a) Human Awareness Institute
HALO - (a) High Altitude Low Opening (type of a parachute jump)
HCF - (i) highest common factor
HCI - (i) Human-computer interaction
HDD - (i) hard disk drive - high-density disk
HEPA - (i) High-efficiency particulate air (filter)
Hg - (i) Mercury (element)
Hird - (a) Hurd of interfaces representing depth (cf. HURD)
HIV - (i) Human Immunodeficiency Virus
HKS - (i) hyperkinetic syndrome
HLA - (i) Human leukocyte antigen - High level architecture
HLL - (i) high-level language
HMCE - (i) Her Majesty's Customs and Excise
HMCS - (i) Her/His Majesty's Canadian Ship
HMO - (i) Health Management Organization
HMP - (i) Her/His Majesty's Prison
HMS - (i) Her/His Majesty's Ship (see Royal Navy)
HMSO - (i) Her/His Majesty's Stationery Office
HMV - (i) His Master's Voice

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

IAAF - (i) International Association of Athletics Federations
IAAL - (i) I am a lawyer
IAEA - (i) International Atomic Energy Agency
IAF - {i} Industrial Areas Foundation
IAI - (i) International African Institute - Israel Aircraft Industries
IANA - (i) Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IANAL - (i) I am not a lawyer
IATA - (a/i) International Air Transport Association
ICAO - (i) International Civil Aviation Organization
ICBM - (i) intercontinental ballistic missile
ICBN - (i) International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
ICC - (i) International Criminal Court
ICD - (i) Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator - International Classification of Diseases
ICHTHYS - (a) Iesous Christos, Theou Yios, Soter (Greek for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior")
ICP - (i) Insane Clown Posse - inductively coupled plasma
ICZN - (i) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
IDF - (i) Israel Defence Forces

IE-IQ

i.e. - (i) id est (Latin, roughly "that is")
IE - Internet Explorer - Indo-European
IED - (i) Improvised Explosive Device
IEEE - (i) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (pronounced "I triple-E")
IETF - (i) Internet Engineering Task Force
IFO - (i) Identified flying object
IHR - (i) Institute for Historical Review
IIRC - (i) If I recall/remember correctly
IIT - (i) Indian Institutes of Technology - Illinois Institute of Technology - Indiana Institute of Technology
ILC - (i) International Law Commission
ILO - (i) International Labour Organisation
IMF - (i) International Monetary Fund
IMHO - (i) In My Humble Opinion
IMO - (i) International Maritime Organization - In My Opinion
IMRI - (i) 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 - (i) Iraqi National Congress
INLA - (i) Irish National Liberation Army
INRI - (a/i) Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum (Latin, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews")
IP - (i) Intellectual property - Internet Protocol
IPN - (i) Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (Institute for National Memory)
IQ - (i) Intelligence Quotient

IR-IU

IR - (i) Infrared
IRA - (i) Individual Retirement Account (legally, Individual Retirement Arrangement) - Irish Republican Army
IRBM - (i) intermediate Range Ballistic Missile
IRC - (i) International reply coupon
IRC - (i) Internet relay chat
IRO - (i) International Refugee Organisation
IRS - (i) Internal Revenue Service
ISA - (i) Individual Savings Account - industry standard architecture - Instruction Set Architecture - International Seabed Authority
ISAF - (a) International Sailing Federation - International Security Assistance Force
ISCII - (a) Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange
ISO - (i) In search of - International Organization for Standardization
IT - (i) Information Technology
ITN - (i) Independent Television News (British TV news company)
ITS - (i) Incompatible Time-sharing System
ITT - (i) International Telephone and Telegraph (US company)
ITU - (i) International Telecommunication Union
IUPAC - (a) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (pronounced "eye-yoo-pac"
IWW - (i) Industrial Workers of the World

J

JAG - (a) Judge Advocate General (US military lawyers)
JAL - (a) Japan Airlines
JAMA - (i) Journal of the American Medical Association
JATO - (a) Jet Assisted Takeoff Unit
JCS - (i) Joint Chiefs of Staff
JDL - (i) Jewish Defense League
Jeb Bush - (a) John Ellis Bush
Jeb Stuart - (a) James Ewell Brown (Stuart's given names)
JFK - (i) John Fitzgerald Kennedy or the airport named after him.
JPEG - (a) Joint Photographic Experts Group
JRA - (i) Japanese Red Army
JW - (i) Jehovah's Witnesses

K

KARNAC - (a) Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context
KBE - (i) Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
KCK - (i) Kansas City, Kansas
KCMO - (p) Kansas City, Missouri (pronounced "K-C-Moe")
KFC - (i) Kentucky Fried Chicken
KGB - (i) Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security - Soviet Intelligence Service)
KIA - (i) Killed In Action
KISS - (a) Keep it simple stupid
KKK - (i) Ku Klux Klan
KLM - (i) Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines)
KMFDM - (i) Kein mitleid für die mehrheit, or "no pity for the majority" (band)

L

LA-LI

LA - (i) Los Angeles
LACMA - (i) Los Angeles County Museum of Art
LAN - (a) Local Area Network
LANL - (i) Los Alamos National Laboratory
LARC - (a) Livermore Advanced Research Computer (cf. LLNL)
Laser - (a) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (cf. Maser)
LATA - (i) Local Access Transport Area
LabVIEW - (p) Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench
LBGT - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
LBJ - (i) Lyndon Baines Johnson - Lady Bird Johnson - Little Beagle Johnson (their dog) - Lightbulb joke
LBNL - (i) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
LBS - Location-Based Services
LBW - (i) leg before wicket
LCD - (i) liquid crystal display
LCM - (i) least common multiple
LDAP - (a/i) Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (pronounced "ell-dap")
LDS - (i) Latter Day Saint - Liberal Democracy of Slovenia
LEC - (i) Local Exchange Carrier
LED - (i) Light Emitting Diode
LGB - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
LGM - (i) little green men
LIFO - (a) Last in, first out

LL-LV

LLC - (i) limited liability company
LLNL - (i) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
LLP - (i) limited liability partnership
LMAO - (i) Laughing my a** off.
LMS - (i) London Mathematical Society
LNG - (i) liquefied natural gas
LOL - (i) Laughing Out Loud
LPG - (i) liquefied petroleum gas (cf. LNG)
LRAD - (p) Long Range Acoustic Device
LSD - (i) German, lyserg-saüre-dietylamid (lysergic acid diethylamide)
LSE - (i) London School of Economics - London Stock Exchange
LSI - (i) Large-Scale Integration
LUCA - (a) Last Universal Common Ancestor
LVEF - (i) Left ventricular ejection fraction

M

MA-MH

MAA - (i) Mathematical Association of America
MAD - (a) magnetic anomaly detector - mutual assured destruction
MADD - (a) Mothers Against Drunk Driving - Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency
MAO - (i) Monoamine oxidase
Maser - (a) Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
MASH - (a) mobile army surgical hospital
MBE - (i) Member of the Order of the British Empire
MBTA - (i) Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
MC - (i) Military Cross bravery award
MCA - (i) MultiChannel Analyzer
MCD - (i) minimal cerebral dysfunction
MD - (i) Mentioned in Despatches, military - Doctor of Medicine/medical doctor (Medicinae Doctor)
MDF - (i) main distribution frame - medium-density fibreboard
MDMA - (i) Methylenedioxy-methylamphetamine, also known as "Ecstasy"
MECC - (a) Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (or Corporation, sources differ)
MEP - (i) Member of the European Parliament
MG - (i) Machine gun - Morris Garage
MGM - (i) Metro Goldwyn Mayer
MHz - (i) Megahertz

MI-MN

MIA - (i) Missing in action
MIB - (i) Mint in box (of items on Internet auction/trading listings)
MILF - (a) , Moro Islamic Liberation Front
MIMAROPA - (a) a region in the Philippines: Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan
MIP - (a) Multiple Identity Poster
MIRV - (a) Multiple independent reentry vehicle
MIS - (a) Management Information Systems - Museum Information System
MIT - (i) Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey)
MITS - (i) see entry
MLA - (i) member of legislative assembly
MLB - (i) Major League Baseball
MLS - (i) Multiple Listing Service - Major League Soccer
MMU - (i) Manned Maneuvering Unit
MND - (i) Motor Neurone Disease
MNT - (i) Molecular nanotechnology

MO-MT

MO - (i) modus operandi
MOFA (both i and a)- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan
MOF (both i and a)- Ministry of Finance
Moe - Marvel of entertainment
MOAB - (a) Massive Ordnance Air Blast (official) - mother of all bombs (slang)
MoMA - (i) Museum of Modern Art
MOPE - (a) Most Oppressed People Ever (politics)
MOS - (a) Mit Out Sound or Mit Out Sprache
MP - (i) Member of Parliament - military police - magic points
MPEG - (a) Motion Pictures (Coding) Experts Group
MRI - (i) magnetic resonance imaging
MS - (i) Master of Science - Microsoft (sometimes M$) - Multiple sclerosis
MSG - (i) Monosodium glutamate
MSIE - (i) Microsoft Internet Explorer
MST - (i) Mountain Standard Time - Madison Symmetric Torus
MST3K - (i) Mystery Science Theater 3000
MTR - (i) Main and Tail Rotor (helicopter type)
MTS - (i) Michigan Terminal/Timesharing System - multichannel television sound - Multi-Technical Services
MTV - (i) Music TeleVision; MainosTeleVisio (Finnish commercial TV company)

N

N#

N3F - (i) National Fantasy Fan Federation

NA-ND

N/A - (i) not available / not applicable
NAACP ("N double-A CP") - (i) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAAFI - (a) Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (British)
NAIRU - (i) Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
NAMBLA - (a) North American Man-Boy Love Association - National Associaton of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes
NaN - (i) Not a Number (computing)
NARAL - (a) National Abortion Rights Action League
NASA - (a) National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASCAR - (a) National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
Nasdaq - (a) National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations
NATO - (a) North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - National Association of Theatre Owners
NB - (i) nota bene - New Brunswick
NBA - (i) National Basketball Association
NBC - (i) Nuclear/Biological/Chemical - National Broadcasting Corporation
NC - (i) network computer - non-consensual - normally closed - North Carolina
NCAA - (i) ("NC double A") - National Collegiate Athletic Association
NDP - (i) New Democratic Party

NE-NI

NE - (i) northeast
NET - (i) National Educational Television
NFC - (i) National Football Conference
NECTEC - (i) National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Thailand)
NEWS - (a) North, East, West, South
NFER - (i) National Foundation for Educational Research
NFL - (i) National Football League
Nfld - (i) Newfoundland
NG - (i) natural gas - next generation
NGO - (i) non-governmental organization
NHANES - (i) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
NHL - (i) National Hockey League
NIAID - National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease
NIB - (i) New in box (of items on Internet auction/trading listings)
NICHD - National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
NIH - (i) National Institutes of Health - Not Invented Here
NIMBY - (a) Not In My Back Yard
NIMH - (i) National Institute of Medical Herbalists - National Institute of Mental Health
NiMH - (i) nickel metal hydride (the lower-case "i" is the standard convention for this acronym in this context)
NIN - (i) Nine Inch Nails (band)
NIST - (i) National Institute of Standards and Technology

NL-NU

NLP - (i) Natural Language Processing or Neuro-linguistic programming
NMD - (i) National Missile Defense
NNE - (i) north northeast
NNW - (i) north northwest
NO - (i) normally open - nitric oxide
NOAA - (a) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NORAD - (a) North American Aerospace Defense Command
NUCC(C) - (a) Nordic University Computer Club (Conference)
NORML - (a) National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
NORWICH - (a) (k)Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home (British army slang written on letters home)
NOS - (i) New old stock (of items on Internet auction/trading listings)
NOTAFLOF - (a) No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds
NOW - (a) National Organization for Women
NPC - (i) Non-Player Character (roleplaying terminology) / National Provincial Championship (New Zealand rugby competition)
NPD - (i) Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German)
NPOV - (i) Neutral point of view
NPR - (i) National Public Radio
NRTA - (i) National Retired Teachers Association - National Rat Terrier Association - Northwest Regional Transmission Association - National Retail Tenants Association
NSA - (i) National Security Agency
NTSC - (i) National Television Standards Committee
NUTS - (a) Nuclear Utilization Target Selection

NW-NZ

NW - (i) northwest
NWFZ - (i) Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone
NYHA - (i) New York Heart Association
NYRA - (i) National Youth Rights Association / (a) New York Racing Association (horse racing)
NYSE - (i) New York Stock Exchange
NYT - (i) New York Times
NZ - (i) New Zealand
NZC - (i) New Zealand Cricket

O

OAC - (i) on approved credit
OAU - (i) Organization for African Unity
OBE - (i) Officer of the Order of the British Empire
OCR - (i) optical character recognition
OCS - (i) see entry
OED - (i) Oxford English Dictionary
OEM - (i) Original Equipment Manufacturer
OJ - (i) orange juice / O. J. Simpson
OO - (i) object oriented - over & out
OOP - (i) object-oriented programming
OOS - (i) Occupational overuse syndrome
OPAC - (a) Online Public Access Catalogue
OPEC - (a) Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
OPP - (i) Ontario Provincial Police
OSI - (i) Office of Strategic Influence / Ontario Swine Improvement / Open Source Initiative / Open systems interconnect
OSS - (i) Organization of Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
OTOH - (i) On The Other Hand

P

P2P - Peer to Peer (file sharing)

PA-PC

PABX - (i) Private Automated Branch Exchange (company phone system)
PAFC - (i) Plymouth Argyle Football Club
Pakistan - (a) Punjab, Afghan States, Kashmir, Sindh, Baluchistan
PAL - (a) Phase Alternating Line (TV standard) - Philippine Airlines
PARC - (a) Palo Alto Research Center
PARWIG - (a) Power Augmented Ram Wing in Ground (aeroplane wing shape)
PATH - (a) Port Authority Trans Hudson
PBS - (i) Public Broadcasting Service
PBX - (i) Private branch exchange (company phone system)
PC - (i) Personal Computer - Player Character (roleplaying) - Politically Correct / Political Correctness
PCB - (i) see entry
PCC - (i) Presidents Conference Committee
PCMCIA - (i) Personal Computer Memory Card International Association - People Can't Memorise Computer-Industry Acronyms
PCP - (i) phencyclidine - pneumocystis carinii pneumonia - probabilistically checkable proof

PD-PK

PDA - (i) Public display of affection - personal digital assistant - push-down automaton
PDF - (i) Portable Document Format
PDN - (i) pull-down network
PDQ - (i) pretty damn quick (?)
PDRY - (i) People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
PEBCAC - (a) Problem Exists Between Chair and Computer (IT helpdesk in-joke)
PEBKAC - (a) Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair (ditto)
PEO - (a/i) Professional Engineers Ontario
PET - (a/i) positron emission tomography (as in PET scan) - Personal Electronic Transactor - Pierre Elliott Trudeau
PETA - (a/i) pentaerythritol triacrylate - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - People Eating Tasty Animals
PFLAG - (p) Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
PFO - (i) Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
PGP - (i) Pretty Good Privacy.
PHP - (i) PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
PIN - (i) Personal Identication Number
PINF - (i) People In Need Foundation (Czech charitable organization)
PIPA - (i) Program on International Policy Attitudes
PITA - (a) Pain In The Ass
PKA - (i) Previously Known As

PL-PR

PLC - (i) (British) public limited company
PLL - (i) Phase-locked loop (electronics)
PLM - (i) Polarized light microscope - polarized light microscopy
PLO - (i) Palestine Liberation Organization
PLOKTA - (a) Press Lots of Keys to Abort
PLUTO - (a) Pipe Line Under The Ocean
PM - (i) Post Meridian - Prime Minister - phase modulation - Perry Mason
PNAC - (i) Project for the New American Century
PNG - (i) Portable Network Graphic - Papua New Guinea
PNP - (i) Partido Nuevo Progresista - plug 'n' play - positive negative positive
POG - (a) Passionfruit, Orange and Guava
POP - (i) Point of Presence - Post Office Protocol
Posh - (a) see Dubious entries
POTS - (a) Plain Old Telephone Service (cf PANS - Pretty Advanced/Awesome Network Services)
PPM - (i) Parts Per Million
PPP - (i) Point-to-Point Protocol / Purchasing Power Parity
PPQ - (i) Pulses Per Quarter used in Music programming, sequencers
PPQN - (i) Pulses Per Quarter Note
PRC - (i) People's Republic of China

PS-PY

PS - (i) post scriptum
PSA - (i) Prostate specific antigen - Production Services Association - Paralysis Society of America - Pharmaceutical Society of Australia - Public Service Association - Public Service Announcement - pressure-sensitive adhesive
PSV - (i) Philips Sport Vereniging (Dutch for Philips Sports Union)
PTA - (i) Parent-Teacher Association
PTO - (i) please turn over - (a) Patent & Trademark Office
PTUI - (a/i) ("pa-too-ey") plain-text user interface (cf CLI)
PUG - (i) PET Users Group
PUN - (i) pull-up network
PVC - (i) permanent virtual circuit - polyvinyl chloride - premature ventricular contraction
PWP - (i) Plot, What Plot? (in online fiction, especially fanfic or erotic fiction, to denote plotless, um, "feel-good" stories)
PWR - (i) pressurized water reactor
PY - (i) Portsmouth yardstick

Q

Qantas - (a) Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services
QC - (i) Queen's Counsel - quality control
QCA - (i) Qualifications and Curriculum Authority - Quality Council of Alberta
QCD - (i) quantum chromodynamics
QDOS - (a) Quick and Dirty Operating System
QED - (i) Latin "quid es demonstrata" (that proves it) - quantum electrodynamics
QSL - (i) Québec sign language
Quango - (a) (British Commonwealth) QUasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation
Quasar - (a) Quasi-stellar radio source
qv - (i) Latin "quod vide" (which see)

R

R2I - (i) Resistance to Interrogation

RA-RE

RA - (i) right ascension
RAC - (i) Royal Automobile Club (in the UK), renamed RAC plc in 2002
Radar - (a) Radio detection and ranging
RAF - (i) Royal Air Force; Red Army Faction
RAM - (a) Random-access memory - Royal Air Maroc - Rolling Airframe Missile
R&B - (i) Rhythm and Blues
RBI - (i) Runs batted in
RBOC - (a/i) Regional Bell operating company ("Baby Bell")
RC - (i) see entry
RCA - (i) Radio Corporation of America; Royal City Avenue (famous entertainment zone in Thailand)
RCAF - (i) Royal Canadian Air Force
RCCO - (i) Royal Canadian College of Organists
RCMP - (i) Royal Canadian Mounted Police
RCS - (i) Revision Control System
RCT - (i) Randomized controlled trial
RDDL - (i) Resource Directory Description Language
REACT - (a) Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology
REAM - (i) Retired Educators Association of Minnesota

RF-RP

RFC - (i) Request for Comments; Royal Flying Corps (WWI precursor to RAF)
RFE - (i) Request for Enhancement
RFID - (i) Radio frequency Identification
RGB - (i) Red Green Blue (colour model)
RGBI - (i) Red Green Blue Intensity
RIAA - (i) Recording Industry Association of America
RIF - (i) Reduction In Force (layoffs)
RIP - (i) Rest in Peace - Latin: requiescant in pace
RISD - (p) ("RIZ-dee") Rhode Island School of Design
RMS - (i) Royal Mail Ship (eg RMS Titanic) - Root-mean-square - Richard M. Stallman - Rate-monotonic scheduling
RNA - (i) Ribonucleic Acid
ROC - (i) Republic of China
ROFL(MAO) - (i) Rolling On the Floor Laughing (My A** Off)
ROM - (a) Read-only memory; Royal Ontario Museum
ROV - (i) remotely operated vehicle
RP - (i) role-playing
RPG - (i) role-playing game; Rocket Projectile Gun; Rocket Powered/Propelled Grenade
RPL - (i) Reverse Polish Lisp
rpm - (i) Revolutions Per Minute; Red Hat Package Manager
RPN - (i) reverse Polish notation
rps - (i) revolutions per aecond

RR-RW

RRS - (i) Racing Rules of Sailing
RRSP - (i) Registered Retirement Savings Plan (Canada; roughly equivalent to the IRA in the USA)
RSI - (i) Repetitive strain injury
RSJ - (i) Rolled Steel Joist, used in construction
RSN - (i) Real Soon Now, coined by author Jerry Pournelle
RSPCA - (i) Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
RSS - (i) Really Simple Syndication
RSVP - (i) répondez s'il vous plait (please reply)
RTF - (i) Rich Text Format
RTFM - (i) Read the Fucking Manual
RTL - (i) see entry
RTS - (i) see entry
RUC - (i) Royal Ulster Constabulary
RWADA - (i) Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance, a New York State term used in public education to indicate the size of a school district, i.e its number of students

S

SA-SC

SA - (i) Sturmabteilung (Nazi Storm Detachment, forerunner and rival of SS, qv.)
SAD - (i) Seasonal Affective Disorder
SALT - (a/i) Strategic Arms Limitation Talks - Southern African Large Telescope
SAM - (a) surface-to-air missile - sequential-access memory - Sociedad Aeronáutica de Medellín
SAR - (i) Search and Rescue - Synthetic aperture radar - Special Administrative Region
SARS - (a) Severe acute respiratory syndrome
SAS - (i) Special Air Service - Scandinavian Airline Systems - Second Avenue Subway
SAT - (i) formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test; now known solely by the initials
SATB - (i) soprano alto tenor bass
SAVAK - (a) Sazamane Etelaat va Amniate Kechvar (Iranian Security and Intelligence Service)
SBC - (i) Single-board computer
SBS - (i) Special Boat Service; Special Broadcasting Service
SCAP - (a) Supreme Commander Allied Powers (Allied occupation of Japan)
SCRAM - (a) safety control rod axe man
SCSI- (a) (technically pronounced "scuzzy") - small computer system interface
Scuba - (a) Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

SD-SI

SD - (i) Sheriff's department
SDI - (i) see entry
SDP - (i) Social Democratic Party (European politics)
SDRAM - (a) ("ess-dee-RAM") Synchronous dynamic random-access memory
SE - (i) southeast
SEATO - (a) Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
SEC - (i) Securities and Exchange Commission / Southeastern Conference
SECAM - (a) Systeme Electronique Couleur Avec Memoire (TV standard, cf NTSC, PAL)
SETI - (a) Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
SF - (i) San Francisco - science fiction
SGML - (i) Standard Generalised Markup Language
SI - (i) Système International - Socialist International - Sports Illustrated
SIAM - (i) Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
SIG - (a/i) Special Interest Group - .signature (a UNIX shell/internet standard file name)
SIIT - (i) Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (university in Canada); Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (university in Thailand); Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm
SIMM - (a) single in-line memory module
SIMPLE - (a) Satellite Interactive Multimedia Platform for Low-cost Earth Stations
SIS - (i) Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6)

SL-SO

SLA - (i) Symbionese Liberation Army
SLORC - (a) The State Law and Order Restoration Council (of Burma)
SLR - (i) Single-lens reflex (camera)
SLT - (i) Solid Logic Technology (electronics)
SMDR - (i) Station Message Detail Recording
SMD - (i) Surface mount device
SMG - (i) Submachine gun
SMU - (i) Southern Methodist University
SMS - (i) many, including Short message service; see entry
SNAFU - (a) Situation Normal—All Fouled/Fucked Up
SNCF - (i) Société National des Chemins de Fer Français (French Railways)
SNOBOL - (a) StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language
SNRI - (i) Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor
SNU - (a) Solar neutrino unit
SO - (i) Signifigant other - sheriff's office
SOB - (i) Son Of a Bitch
SOCCSKSARGEN - (a) a region in the Philippines: South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, General Santos City (pronounced sock-sar-gen)
SOE - (i) Special Operations Executive (WWII British organization) - Secret of Evermore
SOL - (i) S**t Out of Luck
Sonar - (a) Sound navigation and ranging
SOV - (i) Single occupant vehicle

SP-ST

SPCO - (i) single-pole change over
SPD - (i) Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany) - Shimano Pedaling Dynamics
SPDT - (i) single-pole double-throw
SPQR - (i) Senatus Populus Que Romanus ("The Senate and the People of Rome")
SPST - (i) single-pole single-throw
SRAM - (a) ("ess-ram") Static Random Access Memory
SRB - (i) solid rocket booster
SRBM - (i) Short-range ballistic missile (cf. IRBM, ICBM)
SS - (i) Schutzstaffel (Nazi elite Praetorian guard) - U.S. Secret Service - Spanish ship - stainless steel - Stockholm Skins - Super Sport
SSDD - (i) single-sided double-density (floppy disk) - same shit, different day
SSNW - (i) same shit, new wrapping
SSE - (i) south southeast - Streaming SIMD Extensions
SSRI - (i) Social Systems Research Institute - Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
SSW - (i) south southwest
STFU - (a) Shut the Fuck Up
STOL - (i) Short Take Off and Landing
STOVL - (i) Short Take Off and Vertical Landing
STP - (i) standard temperature and pressure
Stuka - (a) Sturzkampfflugzeug (German WWII dive bomber)

SU-SW

SUB - (i) student-union building
SUNY - (a) State University of New York (usually pronounced "SUE-knee")
SUV - (i) Sport utility vehicle
SVG - (i) Scalar Vector Graphics
SVO - (i) subject, verb, object
SW - (i) southwest
SWF - (p) ("swiff") Shockwave Flash file
SWAPO - (i) South West African People's Organization
SWAT - (a) Special Weapons And Tactics
SWOT - (a) Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats

T

TA-TL

TANJ - (a) There Ain't No Justice
TANSTAAFL - (a) There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (from Robert Heinlein)
TARDIS - (a) Time And Relative Dimensions In Space (from Doctor Who)
TATT - (i) Tired All The Time (medical diagnosis in-joke)
TBA - (i) To be announced
TBC - (i) To be confirmed
TBD - (i) To be determined
TCG - (i) Trusted Computing Group - Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Gemisi
TCP - (i) Transmission Control Protocol - trichlorophenol
TCU - (i) Texas Christian University
TEAL - (a) Tasman Empire Airways Limited
TEETH - (a) Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy (medical diagnosis in-joke)
TGIF - (i) Thank God it's Friday
TGV - (i) Train à Grande Vitesse (high-speed train) - Tanjong Golden Village - Test Generation with Verification
TLA - (i) Three-Letter Abbreviation/Acronym
TLC - (i) tender loving care - The Learning Channel - thin layer chromatography
TLD - (i) top-level domain

TM-TU

TM - (i) trademark (often written in small superscript type) - Turing machine
TM! - (n) Tenchi Muyo!
TMA - (i) Terminal Manoeuvring Area Restricted flying zone
TMJ - (i) Temporomandibular Joint (syndrome)
TMR - (i) Twin Main Rotors (helicopter type)
TMTOWTDI - (i) There's More Than One Way To Do It (from Perl)
TNT - (i) Trinitro toluene
TOS - (a) Terms of Service - Tape Operating System - Tramiel Operating System
TOW - (a) Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (anti-tank missile)
TPTB - (i) The Powers That Be (often used to refer to the people responsible for the content of TV series or movies)
TSN - (i) The Sports Network - The Sporting News
TSR - (i) many, including Terminate and Stay Resident; see entry
TTFN - (i) Ta Ta For Now
TTL - (i) Transistor-transistor logic - Time 'till live - Time to live.
TTYL - (i) Internet slang, "talk to you later"
TU - (i) Technische Universität (German for Technical University); Thammasat University (Thailand)
TUC - (i) Trades Union Congress
TUG - (a) TeX Users Group
TUI - (a/i) text user interface (cf. CLI)
TUNS - (i) Technical University of Nova Scotia

TV-TW

TVA - (i) Tennessee Valley Authority (part of New Deal)
TWAT - (i) The War Against Terror

U

UA-UL

UAB - (i) University of Alabama at Birmingham
UAR - (i) uniformly at random (probability)
UBC - (i) United Baptist Church - University of British Columbia
UBS - (i) United Banque Suisse, United Bank of Switzerland, Unbundled Bitstream Services
UCBSA - (i) United Cricket Board of South Africa
UCLA - (i) University of California, Los Angeles
UEFA - (a) Union of European Football Associations
UFO - (i) Unidentified Flying Object, United Farmers of Ontario
UHF - (i) ultra high frequency
UHMW - (i) ultra-high molecular weight
UÇK - (i) acronym for two Albanian guerilla movements
UID - (i) User ID.
UK - (i) United Kingdom
UL - (i) Underwriters Laboratories

UN-UR

UN - (i) United Nations
UNABOM - (p) University and airline bomber
UNCF - (i) United Negro College Fund
UNESCO - (a) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNHCR - (i) United Nations High Commission(er) for Refugees
UNICEF - (a) United Nations Children's Fund, originally United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
UNIDO - (a) United Nations Industrial Development Organization
UNIFEM - (p) United Nations Development Fund for Women
UNLV - (i) University of Nevada, Las Vegas
UNMOVIC - (p) United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission
UNPROFOR - (a) United Nations Protection Force
UNSM - (i) Union of Nova Scotian Municipalities
UOG - (a/i) University of Guelph
UPC - (i) Universal Product Code
UPI - (i) United Press International
UPN - (i) United Paramount Network.
UPS - (i) United Parcel Service - uninterruptible power supply
UPU - (i) Universal Postal Union
URI - (i) uniform resource identifier
URL - (a/i) Uniform Resource Locator (pronounced earl, or yoo-ar-ell)

US-UV

US - United States
USA - (i) United States of America - United States Army
USAF - (i) United States Air Force
USAPATRIOT - (i) Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
USB - (a/i) Universal Serial Bus
USC - (i) United States Code / University of Southern California / University of South Carolina
USCG - (i) United States Coast Guard
USDOE - (i) United States Department of Energy
USFL - (i) United States Football League
USGS - (i) United States Geological Survey
USMC - (i) United States Marine Corps
USN - (i) United States Navy
USNY - (a) University of the State of New York (usually pronounced "USE-knee")
USPS - (i) United States Postal Service
USS - (i) United States ship - sometimes meaningless (see Star Trek)
USSR - (i) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (ie. Soviet Union)
UU - (i) Unitarian Universalism, University of Utah, Unseen University
UUA - (i) Unitarian Universalist Association.
UUID - Universally Unique Identifier (see also GUID).
UV - (i) ultraviolet

V

VAT - (i) value-added tax
VB - (i) Victoria Bitter - Visual Basic
VC - (i) Victoria Cross
VfD - (i) Votes for deletion, used in BambooWeb
VFW - (i) Veterans of Foreign Wars
VHF - (i) very high frequency
VIP - (i) (see VIP)
VISCII - VIetnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange
VLIW - (i) Very Long Instruction Word
VLSI - (i) Very-large-scale integration
VNS - (i) (see VNS)
VOC - (i) Volatile organic compounds
VP - (a/i) vice-president
VSO - (i) Voluntary Services Overseas
VTOL - (i) Vertical Takeoff & Landing
VV - (i) Via Voice - Village Voice

W

W3C - (i) World Wide Web Consortium
WACC - (a) Weighted Average Cost of Capital
WAN - (a) Wide Area Network
WASP - (a) white anglo-saxon protestant
WB - (i) Warner Brothers
WC - (i) Winston Churchill - water closet - World Cup (sports)
WCL - (i) World Confederation of Labour
WDC - (i) World Data Center - Western Design Center
WFP - (i) World Food Program
WHO - (a) World Health Organisation
WIPO - (i) World Intellectual Property Organization
WMO - (i) World Meteorological Organization
WNW - (i) west northwest
WOLOG - (i) without loss of generality
WPE - (i) World Pork Expo
WRT - (i) with respect to
WSJ - (i) Wall Street Journal
WSW - (i) west southwest
WTC - (i) World Trade Center
WTF - (i) What the Fuck? ("WTF" could also be considered, especially in online communications, a euphemism)
WTO - (i) World Trade Organization
WW - (i) many, see entry
WWE - (i) World Wrestling Entertainment
WWI - (i) World War One (also: WW1)
WWII - (i) World War Two (also: WW2)
WWF - (i) World Wildlife Fund; World Wrestling Federation
WWW - (i) World Wide Web
WYSIWYG - (a) What You See Is What You Get (see entry for derived acronyms)

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

ZCU - (i) Zimbabwe Cricket Union
ZIP code - (a) Zoning Improvement Plan
ZOPFAN - (i) Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality
ZUI - (a) Zooming User Interface

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


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