Contents
List of initialisms
This is a list of initialisms, acronyms that are pronounced as a series of the names of the constituent letters.
- aka - also known as
- AA - Alcoholics Anonymous / Automobile Association
- AAA - American Automobile Association
- ACL - Access Control List
- ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
- AD - Latin "Anno Domini" (In the year of our Lord)
- ADT - Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
- AFACT - As far as I can tell
- AFAIK - As far as I know
- AFAIR - As far as I remember
- AFJ - April Fool's Joke
- AIM - AOL Instant Messenger, among others
- AFK - Away from keyboard
- AGM - Annual General Meeting
- AI - Amnesty International; Artificial Intelligence
- AIC - African Independent Church[?]
- AKDT - Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time (UTC-8 hours)
- AKST - Alaska Standard Time (UTC-9 hours)
- AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
- AOL - America Online
- AP - Associated Press
- apm - Advanced Power Management
- 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
- 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
- B2B - Business to Business
- B2C - Business to Customer
- B2E - Business to Employee
- BB - Brigitte Bardot (actress) / Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation)
- BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
- BBQ - Barbeque
- BC - Before Christ / Blind Copy (in emailers)
- BCC - Blind Carbon Copy
- BCE - Before Common Era
- BFE - Beyond/Butt F*****' Egypt (colloquial for "quite far away")
- BMI - Broadcast Music Incorporated / Body mass index
- BMX - Bicycle Motor Cross
- BO2K - Back Orifice 2000
- BOFH - Bastard operator from hell
- BP - British Petroleum (today, BP doesn't officially stand for everything)
- bpm - Beats per minute
- BRB - Internet chat abbreviation, "be right back"
- BSA - Boy Scouts of America
- BSE - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow disease
- BSL - British Sign Language
- BST - British Summer Time (UTC+1 hour)
- BT - British Telecommunications plc
- BTO - Built to Order
- BTW - By the way
- BYOB - Bring your own beverages/bottle
- CB - citizens' band radio
- CBC - Canadian Broadcasting Company
- CC - carbon copy
- CCCP - Cyrillic letters corresponding SSSR, see USSR
- CD - Compact disc
- CDC - Centre for Disease Control and prevention
- CE - Common (or Christian) Era (cf. AD)
- CEPT - Conference Européenne des administration des Postes et des Télécommunications (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations)
- cf. - Latin confer (compare, or see also)
- CFG - Context-free grammar, Control flow graph
- CIA - Central Intelligence Agency
- CID - Criminal Investigations Department
- CIS - Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union
- CLEC - Competitive (?) Local Exchange Carrier
- CO - Central Office (Phone Company office or POP)
- CMM - Capability Maturity Model
- CMR - Coaxial Main Rotors (helicopter type)
- CND - Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- CNN - Cable News Network
- CPA - Certified Practicing Accountant
- CRM - Customer Relationship Management
- CSA - Confederate States of America
- CSICOP - Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
- DC - Italian Democrazia Cristiana
- DDT - dicloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (insectice)
- DEA - Drug Enforcement Agency
- DH, DD, DS - dear husband, dear daughter, dear son (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards)
- DHSS - Department of Health and Social Security
- DNA - DeoxyriboNucleic Acid
- DND - Do Not Disturb
- DOA - Dead On Arrival
- DVD - Digital Versatile Disk (was Digital Video Disk)
- EEC - European Economical Community
- ELF[?] - Extremely low frequency
- ESA - European Space Agency
- ESP - Extra-Sensory Perception
- ETA - estimated time of arrival; Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna
- etc - latin "et cetera" (and remaining)
- ETLA - Extended TLA
- EU - European Union
- FAO - Food and Agriculture Organization
- FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
- FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation
- FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
- FLK - Funny-Looking Kid (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- FMSF False Memory Syndrome Foundation[?]
- FPS - First person shooter
- FST - Finlands Svenska Television[?] (Finland's Swedish-language television)
- FTL - Faster Than Light
- FUBAR - F****d Up Beyond All Repair/Recognition
- FYI - For Your Information
- FWIW - For What It's Worth
- GE - General Electric
- GFY - Internet chat acronym, "good for you", or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context
- GL - Grenade Launcher
- GM - GameMaster (role-playing terminology) / Genetically Modified[?]
- GMO - Genetically modified organism
- GT - Gran Turismo
- HMCE - Her/His Majesty?s Customs and Excise
- 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
- HQ - Headquarters
- IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency
- IAI - International African Institute
- IANAL - I am not a lawyer
- ICAO - International Civil Aviation Organization
- ICC - International Criminal Court
- IFO - Identified flying object
- IIRC - If I recall correctly
- ILC[?] - International Law Commission
- ILO - International Labour Organisation
- IMF - International Monetary Fund
- IMHO - In My Humble Opinion
- IMO - International Maritime Organization - In My Opinion
- INLA - Irish National Liberation Army
- IPN - Polish Institute for National Memory (Instytut pamieci narodowej)
- IRA - Irish Republican Army
- IRC - Internet Relay Chat
- IRO - International Refugee Organisation
- IRS - Internal Revenue Service
- ISA - International Seabed Authority
- ITN - Independent Television News (British TV news company)
- ITU - International Telecommunication Union (yet to be established)
- JFK - John Fitzgerald Kennedy
- JRA - Japanese Red Army
- KARNAC - Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context
- KGB - Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security - Soviet Intelligence Service
- KIA - Killed In Action
- KKK - Ku Klux Klan
- LATA - Local Access Transport Area
- LEC - Local Exchange Carrier
- LED - Light Emiting Diode
- LGB - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
- LBGT[?] - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual
- LIFO - Last In First Out
- LMAO - Laughing my a** off.
- LMS - London Mathematical Society[?]
- LOL - Laughing Out Loud
- LSD - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide
- MG - Machine gun
- MHz - Megahertz
- MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey)
- MMU - Manned Maneuvering Unit
- MOPE - Most Oppressed People Ever (politics)
- MS - Multiple sclerosis
- MSIE - Microsoft Internet Explorer
- MTR - Main and Tail Rotor (helicopter type)
- MTV - Music TeleVision; MainosTeleVisio (Finnish commercial TV company)
- n/a - not available / Not applicable
- NAIRU - Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
- NBC - Nuclear/Biological/Chemical - National Broadcasting Corporation
- Nfld - Newfoundland
- NGO - Non-Governmental Organization
- NLP - Natural Language Processing or Neuro Linguistic Programming
- NPC - Non-Player Character (roleplaying terminology)
- NPOV - Neutral point of view
- NPR - National public radio
- NSA - National Security Agency
- NZ - New Zealand
- OAU - Organization for African Unity
- OSS - Organization for Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
- OTOH - On The Other Hand
- PABX - Private Automated Branch Exchange[?] (company phone system)
- PBX - Private Branch Exchange[?] (company phone system)
- PC - Personal Computer; Player Character (roleplaying terminology); Politically Correct(ness)
- PDA - Public display of affection[?]; personal digital assistant
- PFO - Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- PINF - People In Need Foundation[?] (Czech charitable organization)
- PLC - (British) public limited company
- PLO - Palestine Liberation Organization
- POP - Point of Presence
- POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service, also PANS - Pretty Advanced (or Awsome) Network Services
- PWP - Plot, What Plot? (in online fiction, especially fanfic or erotic fiction, to denote plotless, um, "feel-good" stories)
- QED - Latin "quid es demonstrata" (that proves it)
- qv - Latin "quod vide" (which see)
- RAF - Royal Air Force; Red Army Faction
- Rap - Rythm and poetry
- R&B - Rythm and Blues[?]
- RBOC - Regional Bell operating company ("Baby Bell")
- RCMP - Royal Canadian Mounted Police
- RIP - Rest in Peace (requiescant in pace)
- RNA - Ribonuclear Acid
- ROFL(MAO) - Rolling On the Floor Laughing (My A** Off)
- RP - role-playing
- RPG - role-playing game; Rocket Projectile Gun/Rocket Powered Grenade
- RPN - Reverse Polish Notation
- rpm - Revolutions Per Minute - RPM Package Manager[?]
- rps - Revolutions Per Second
- RUC - Royal Ulster Constabulary
- SA - Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment, forerunner of SS)
- SAR - Search and Rescue[?]
- SAS - Special Air Service; Scandinavian Airline Systems[?]
- SBS - Special Boat Service
- SDP - Social Democratic Party (European politics)
- SIS - Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6)
- SLA - Symbionese Liberation Army
- SMDR - Station Message Detail Recording
- SMG - Submachine Gun[?]
- SOE - Special Operations Executive (WW2 British organization)
- SOL - S**t Out of Luck
- SOV - Single occupant vehicle
- SPQR - Senatus Populus Que Romanus
- SS - Schutzstaffel (elite guard) - Spanish ship
- SSRI - Social Systems Research Institute[?]
- STOL - Short Take Off and Landing
- STOVL - Short Take Off and Vertical Landing
- SVO - subject, verb, object
- SWAPO[?] - South West African People's Organization
- TATT - Tired All The Time (medical diagnosis in-joke)
- TLA - Three-Letter Acronym
- TMR - Twin Main Rotors (helicopter type)
- TTYL - Internet chat acryonym, "talk to you later"
- UCK - acronym for two Albanian guerilla movements
- UCLA - University of California Los Angeles
- UFO - Unidentified Flying Object
- UN - United Nations
- UNHCR - United Nations High Commission for Refugees
- UPU - Universal Postal Union
- USA - United States of America
- USAF - Unites States Air Force[?]
- USC - United States Code
- USS - United States ship
- USSR - United Soviet Socialist Republics (ie. Soviet Union)
- VSO - Voluntary Services Overseas
- VTOL - Vertical Takeoff & Landing
- WC - Winston Churchill - water closet
- W3C - World Wide Web Convention
- WCL - World Confederation of Labour
- WFP - World Food Program
- WHO - World Health Organization
- WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
- WMO - World Meteorological Organization
- WTC - World Trade Center
- WTO - World Trade Organization
- WW1 (or WWI) - World War One
- WW2 (or WWII) - World War Two
- WWF - World Wildlife Fund; World Wrestling Federation
- WWW - World Wide Web
- YMCA - Young Men's Christian Association
- YMMV - Your Mileage May Vary
- YWCA - Young Women's Christian Association
See also: