Chris Angulo: Abbreviation Definition, What is an Abbreviation

Abbreviation (from Latin brevis "short") is strictly a shorter form of a word, but more particularly, an abbreviation is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. For example, the word "abbreviation" can be abbreviated as "abbr." or "abbrev."

Types of abbreviations

Apart from the common form of shortening one word, there are other types of abbreviations. These include acronym and initialism (including TLA), apocopation (that is, apocope), clipping (phonetics), elision, syncope, syllabic abbreviation, portmanteau.

Syllabic abbreviation

A syllabic abbreviation (SA) is an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol for International police.

SAs are usually written in lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter.

SAs should be distinguished from portmanteaux.

Use in different languages
Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English or French, but are common in certain languages, like German and Russian.

They prevailed in Germany under the Nazis and in the Soviet Union for naming the plethora of new bureaucratic organizations. For example, Gestapo stands for Geheime Staats-Polizei, or "secret state police". This has given syllabic abbreviations a negative connotation, even though they were used in Germany before the Nazis, e.g., Schupo for Schutzpolizist. Even now Germans call part of their police Kripo for Kriminalpolizei. Syllabic abbreviations were also typical of German language used in the German Democratic Republic, e.g. Stasi for Staatssicherheit ("state security", the secret police & secret service) or Vopo for Volkspolizist ("people's policeman"). Some syllabic abbreviations from Russian that are familiar to English speakers include samizdat and kolkhoz. Orwell's novel 1984 uses syllabic abbreviations like "Engsoc" (=ENGlish SOCialism) to evoke the use of language under the Nazi and Soviet regimes.

East Asian languages whose writing uses Chinese-originated ideograms instead of an alphabet form abbreviations similarly by using key characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō is often abbreviated to kokuren. Another classic example is shogun. Such abbreviations are called ryakugo in Japanese. SAs are frequently used for names of universities: for instance, Beida for Peking University (Beijing) and Tōdai for the University of Tokyo

Usage of syllabic abbreviations in organisations
Syllabic abbreviations are preferred by the US Navy as it increases readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence DESRON 6 is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6," while COMNAVFORLANT would be "Commander, Naval Force (in the) Atlantic."

Style Conventions and Abbreviations

In modern English there are several conventions for abbreviations and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be consistent, and to this end publishers express their preferences in a style guide.

Questions which arise include the following:

Use of upper or lower case letters. If the original word was capitalised, then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When abbreviating words spelled with lower case letters, there is no consistent rule.

Use of periods (full stops) and spaces, for example when abbreviating United States, should one write "US", "U.S." or "U. S."? Spaces are generally not used between single letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S.". In American English, the period is usually added if the abbreviation may be interpreted as a word, though some American writers do not use a period here. Sometimes, periods are used for certain acronyms but not others; a notable instance in American English is to write United States, European Union, and United Nations as U.S., EU, and UN respectively. There is no stop/period between letters of the same word, for example St. and not S.t. for Saint. While users of British English often abbreviate in the same manner, it is more common in formal writing that abbreviations are written with full stops if the word has been cut at the point of abbreviation (e.g., "Street" – "St[reet]" – becomes "St."), but not otherwise (e.g., "Saint" – "S[ain]t" – becomes "St"); a third standard removes the full stops from all abbreviations (e.g., both "Saint" and "Street" become "St"). Thus in the United Kingdom, titles such as "Doctor", "Mister" and "Mis'ess" are commonly abbreviated as "Dr", "Mr", and "Mrs" respectively, but they are also frequently written, as in Canada and the U.S., as "Dr.", "Mr." and "Mrs."

Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since "stood the test of time" by entering the vocabulary as generic words are no longer abbreviated with capital letters nor with any periods—e.g., sonar, radar, lidar, laser, and scuba.

Whether to add an apostrophe for a plural where the plural is not formed by doubling up the last letter: should one write CDs or CD's? The apostrophe is not needed grammatically but sometimes is added to make it clear that the s is not part of the abbreviation. Because the apostrophe most often represents possession or a contraction, some style guides prefer that it not be used at all with abbreviations, but only with individual letters—"Dot all your i's and cross all your t's!" or "Mind your p's and q's!"—or numbers—"The dyslexic student mixes up his S's and 5's." Thus numbers, such as decades, that are understood to represent other concepts, are not written with apostrophes either—e.g., "The U.S. enjoyed an economic boom in the 1990s and the Roaring ’20s", referring to decades, or "I am going to the bank to exchange four 5's for two 10's", where the 5's and 10's refer to banknotes.

Conventions followed by publications and newspapers:

Publications based in the United States tend to follow the style guides of the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press. The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

There is some inconsistency in abbreviation styles, however, as they are not rigorously defined by style guides. Some two-word abbreviations, like "United Nations", are abbreviated with uppercase letters and periods, and others, like "personal computer" (PC) and "compact disc" (CD), are not; rather, they are typically abbreviated without periods and in uppercase letters. A third variation is to use lowercase letters with periods; this is used by Time Magazine in abbreviating "public relations" (p.r.). Moreover, even three-word abbreviations (most U.S. publications use uppercase abbreviations without periods) are sometimes not consistently abbreviated, even within the same article.

The New York Times is unique in having a consistent style by always abbreviating with periods: P.C., I.B.M., P.R. This is in contrast with the trend of British publications to completely make do without periods for convenience.

Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:

For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the BBC and The Guardian, have completely done away with the use of full stops or periods in all abbreviations. These include:

Social titles, like Ms or Mr (though these would not have had full stops in any case — see above) Capt, Prof, etc.;
Two-letter abbreviations for countries (US, not U.S.);
Words are seldom abbreviated with lower case letters (PR, instead of p.r., or pr)
Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initial-isms);
Names (e.g., FW de Klerk, GB Whiteley, Park JS). A notable exception is the Economist (e.g., Mr F. W. de Klerk)
Scientific units.

Acronyms are often referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalised. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation can be abbreviated as Nato or NATO, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as Sars or SARS (compare with laser which has made the full transition to an English word and is rarely capitalised at all). Initialisms (which are similar to acronyms but which are not pronounced as words) are always written in capitals, for instance the British Broadcasting Corporation is abbreviated to BBC, never Bbc.

When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (e.g., 100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10ºC).

Miscellaneous and general rules

Plurals are often formed by doubling up the last letter of the abbreviation. Most of these deal with writing and publishing: MS=manuscript, MSS=manuscripts; l=line, ll=lines; p=page, pp=pages; s=section, ss=sections; op.=opus, opp.=opera). This form, derived from Latin is used in Europe in many places: dd=didots. "The following (lines or pages)" is denoted by ff. One example that does not concern printing is hh=hands.

A doubled letter also appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (British prime minister) Lloyd George.

Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States.

It is usually advised to spell out the abbreviation where it is new or unfamiliar to the reader (e.g. UNESCO in a magazine about music, because it refers to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, whose work does not concern music).

Measurement and Abbreviations

The SI international system has a clearly defined set of base units, from which other "derived" units may be obtained. The abbreviations, or more accurately "symbols" (using Roman letters (Greek in the case of ohm)) for these units are also clearly defined together with a set of prefixes, themselves symbolised (abbreviated) with Roman letters (Greek in the singular case of micro, µ), denoting powers of ten. The system is internationally recognised. Periods are not used, except as described below. Neither a unit nor its symbol takes "s" for plural.

In the SI international system of units there should never be a period after or inside the unit, i.e. both 10 k.m. and 10 k.m are wrong - the only correct form is 10 km (only followed with a period when at the end of a sentence).

Placing a period "within" a unit will alter its meaning, as a period is used in the SI system to form compound units and denotes multiplication. Ideally this period should be raised to the centre of the line, but it is often not. So for instance 5 ms means 5 millisecond(s), whereas 5 m.s means 5 metre.second(s). The "m.s" here is a compound unit formed from the product of two fundamental SI units - metre and second.

There should always be a (non-breaking) space between the number and the unit - 10A, 15V, and 25km are all incorrect; they should be 10 A, 15 V and 25 km. The case of letters (i.e. upper (capital) or lower) is also an important part of the SI system and the case should never be changed because of a misguided attempt to follow an abbreviation style. 10 S is quite different in meaning, to a scientist or engineer, from 10 s. The former denotes 10 siemens (a unit of conductance), the latter 10 seconds. Units named after people use a symbol of an upper case first letter, e.g. S, Pa, A, V, N, Wb, W, but spelt out in full in lower case, e.g. siemens, pascal, ampere, volt, newton, weber and watt. By contrast g, l, m, s, cd, h represent gramme, litre, metre, second, candela and hectare respectively. The one slight exception to this rule is the symbol for litre is allowed to be L to help avoid confusion with an upper case i or a one in some type styles—i.e. c.f. l and I.

Likewise the abbreviations of the prefixes denoting powers of ten are case sensitive - m (milli) is a thousandth, M (mega) is a million times, so by inadvertent changes of case one may introduce (in this example) an error of a factor of 1 000 000 000. When written out in full lower case is used for both the prefix and the unit, e.g. megampere for MA, millivolt for mV, nanometre for nm, gigacandela for Gcd.

The above rules, if followed, ensure that the SI system is always unambiguous, so for instance mK is a millikelvin, MK is a megakelvin, K.m is a kelvin.metre, and km is a kilometre. Forms such as k.m and Km are ill-formed and technically meaningless in the SI system although it may be possible to infer which unit is meant from the context.

Powers of ten prefixes:

10²⁴ yotta Y
10²¹ zetta Z
10¹⁸ exa E
10¹⁵ peta P
10¹² tera T
10⁹ giga G
10⁶ mega M
10³ kilo k
10² hecto h
10¹ deka da
10^-1 deci d
10^-2 centi c
10^-3 milli m
10^-6 micro µ
10^-9 nano n
10^-12 pico p
10^-15 femto f
10^-18 atto a
10^-21 zepto z
10^-24 yocto y

History of Abbreviations

After World War II, the British greatly reduced their use of the full stop and other punctuations after abbreviations in at least semi-formal writing, while the Americans more readily kept its use until more recently, and still maintain it more than Britons. The classic example, considered by their American counterparts quite curious, was the maintenance of the internal comma in a British organization of secret agents called the "Special Operations, Executive" – "S.O.E." – which is not found in histories written after about 1960.

But before that, many Britons were more scrupulous at maintaining the French form. In French, the period only follows an abbreviation if the last letter in the abbreviation is not the last letter of its antecedent: "M." is the abbreviation for "monsieur" while "Mme" is that for "Madame" and "Mlle" for "Mademoiselle". Like many other cross-channel linguistic acquisitions, many Britons readily took this up and followed this rule themselves, while the Americans took a simpler rule and applied it rigorously.

Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. The U.S. media tend to abbreviate two-word abbreviations like United States (U.S.), but surprisingly, not personal computer (PC) or television (TV), which is a source of confusion. Many British publications have gradually done away with the use of periods in abbreviations completely.

List of Computing and IT Abbreviations

/. - Slashdot
1GL - First-Generation Programming Language
10B2 - 10 Base2
10B5 - 10 Base5
10B-F - 10 Base-F
10B-FB - 10 Base-FB
10B-FL - 10 Base-FL
10B-FP - 10 Base-FP
10B-T - 10 Base-T
100B-FX - 100 Base-FX
100B-T - 100 Base-T
100B-TX - 100 Base-TX
100BVG - 100 BaseVG
286 - 80286
2B1Q - 2 Binary 1 Quaternary
2GL - Second-Generation Programming Language
3GL - Third-Generation Programming Language
386 - 80386
486 - 80486
4B5BLF - 4 Byte 5 Byte Local Fiber
4GL - Fourth-Generation Programming Language
5GL - Fifth-Generation Programming Language
8B10BLF - 8 Byte 10 Byte Local Fiber
AA - Anti-Aliasing
AAA - Authentication Authorization, Accounting
AABB - Axis Aligned Bounding Box
AAC - Advanced Audio Coding (audio compression format defined by the MPEG-2 standard)
AAL - ATM Adaptation Layer
AALC - ATM Adaptation Layer Connection
AARP - AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol
ABI - Application Binary Interface
ABM - Asynchronous Balanced Mode
ABR - Area Border Router
ABR - Auto Baud - Rate Detect
ABR - Available Bit Rate
AC - Alternating Current
AC - Acoustic Coupler
ACID - Atomiticy Consistency Isolation Durability
ACL - Access Control List
ACL - Active Current Loop
ACM - Association for Computing Machinery
ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
ACD - Automatic Call Distributor
ACF - Advanced Communications Function
ACF NCP - Advanced Communications Function - Network Control Program
ACK - ACKnowledgement
ACR - Allowed Cell Rate
ACR - Attenuation to Crosstalk Ratio
AD - Active Directory
AD - Administrative Domain
ADC - Analog-To-Digital Converter
ADC - Apple Display Connector (DVI variant)
ADB - Apple Desktop Bus
ADCCP - Advanced Data Communications Control Protocol/Procedures
ADO - ActiveX Data Objects
ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (variant of DSL)
AE - Adaptive Equalizer
AES - Advanced Encryption Standard
AF - Anisotropic Filtering
AFP - Apple Filing Protocol
AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port (sometimes used with a suffix indicating the port's bandwidth, like AGP4x)
AH - Active Hub
AI - Artificial Intelligence
AIM - AOL Instant Messenger
AIX - Advanced Interactive Executive
Ajax - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
AL - Active Link
AL - Access List
ALGOL - Algorithmic Language
ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
ALU - Arithmetic and Logical Unit
AM - Active Matrix
AM - Access Method
AM - Active Monitor
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
AMI - American Megatrends Inc. (BIOS manufacturer)
AMR - Audio Modem Riser
ANN - Artificial Neural Network
ANSI - American National Standards Institute
ANT - Another Neat Tool
AoE - ATA over Ethernet
AOL - America Online
AOP - Aspect-Oriented Programming
APCI - Application-Layer Protocol Control Information
API - Application Programming Interface
APIC - Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller
APIPA - Automatic Private IP Addressing
APL - A Programming Language
APS - Accunet Packet Service
APR - Apache Portable Runtime
ARM - Advanced RISC Machines
ARP - Address Resolution Protocol
ARPA - Address and Routing Parameter Area
ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency (see also DARPA)
ARPANET - Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
AS - Access Server
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASG - Abstract Semantic Graph
ASIC - Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ASMP (computing) - Asymmetric Multiprocessing
ASN.1 - Abstract Syntax Notation 1
ASP - Application Service Provider
ASP (MS ASP) - Active Server Pages
AST - Abstract Syntax Tree
ASSP - Application Specific Standard Product
AT - Advanced Technology
AT - Access Time
AT - Active Terminator
ATA - Advanced Technology Attachment
ATAG - Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
ATAPI - Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface
ATG - Advanced Technology Group
ATI - Array Technology Industry
ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode
AT&T - American Telephone & Telegraph
AVC - Advanced Video Coding
AVI - Audio Video Interleaved
AWT - Abstract Windowing Toolkit
B2B - Business-to-Business
B2C - Business-to-Consumer
Bash - Bourne-again shell
BASIC - Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
BBP - Baseband Processor
BBS - Bulletin Board System
BCD - Binary Coded Decimal
BEEP - Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol
BER - Bit Error Rate
BFD - Binary File Descriptor
BFS - Breadth-First Search
BGP - Border Gateway Protocol
BiDi - Bi-Directional
bin - binary
BINAC - Binary Automatic Computer
BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Daemon
BIOS - Basic Input Output System
BJT - Bipolar Junction Transistor
Blog - Web Log
BMP - Basic Multilingual Plane
BNC - Bayonet Neill-Concelman
BOFH - Bastard Operator From Hell
BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
BOOTP - Bootstrap Protocol
BPEL - Business Process Execution Language
BPL - Broadband over Power Lines
bps - bits per second
BRR - Business Readiness Rating
BSA - Business Software Alliance
BSD - Berkeley Software Distribution (Unix variant)
BSOD - Blue Screen of Death (MS Windows specific)
BSS - Block Started by Symbol
BT - BitTorrent
BW - Bandwidth
CA - Certificate Authority
CAD - Computer-Aided Design
CAE - Computer-Aided Engineering
CAID - Computer Aided Industrial Design
CAI - Computer-Aided Instruction
CAM - Computer-Aided Manufacturing
CAPTCHA - Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
CAQ - Computer Aided Quality
CASE - Computer-Aided Software Engineering
cc - C Compiler
CD - Compact Disc
CDE - Common Desktop Environment
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access
CDP - Continuous Data Protection
CD-R - CD-Recordable
CD-ROM - CD Read-Only Memory
CD-RW - CD-Rewritable
CERT - Computer Emergency Response Team
CFWS - Comment and/or Folding White Space
CES - Consumer Electronics Show
CF - Compact Flash
CFD - Computational Fluid Dynamics
CFG - Context-Free Grammar
CFG - Control Flow Graph
CG - Computer Graphics
CGA - Color Graphics Array
CGI - Common Gateway Interface
CGI - Computer-Generated Imagery
CGT - Computational Graph Theory
CHAP - Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol
CHS - Cylinder-Head-Sector
CIFS - Common Internet Filesystem
CIM - Common Information Model
CISC - Complex Instruction Set Computer
CJK - Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
CJKV - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese
CLI - Command Line Interface
CLR - Common Language Runtime
CM - Configuration Management
CM - Content Management
CMOS - Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor
CMS - Content Management System
CN - Canonical Name
CN - Common Name
CNC - Computer Numerical Control
CNR - Communications and Networking Riser
COBOL - Common Business-Oriented Language
COM - Component Object Model
CORBA - Common Object Request Broker Architecture
COTS - Commercial Off-The-Shelf
CPA - Cell Processor Architecture
CPA - Control Panel Applet
CPA - Converged Packet Access
CPAN - Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
CP/M - Control Program/Monitor
cps - characters per second
CPU - Central Processing Unit
CR - Carriage Return
CRAN - Comprehensive R Archive Network
CRC - Cyclic Redundancy Check
CRLF - Carriage Return Line Feed
CRM - Customer Relationship Management
CRT - Cathode Ray Tube
CS - Cable Select
CS - Computer Science
CSE - Computer Science and Engineering
CSRF - Cross-Site Request Forgery
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets
CSS - Content-Scrambling System
CSS - Closed Source Software
CSS - Cross-Site Scripting
CSV - Comma-Separated Values
CT - Computerized Tomography
CTAN - Comprehensive TeX Archive Network
CTCP - Client-To-Client Protocol
CTI - Computer Telephony Integration
CTS - Clear To Send
CTSS - Compatible Time-Sharing System
CUA - Common User Access
CVS - Concurrent Versioning System
DAC - Digital-To-Analog Converter
DAC - Discretionary Access Control
DAO - Data Access Objects
DAO - Disk At Once
DAP - Directory Access Protocol
DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DAT - Digital Audio Tape
DB - Database
DBA - Database Administrator
DBCS - Double Byte Character Set
DBMS - Database Management System
DCC - Direct Client-to-Client
DCCA - Debian Common Core Alliance
DCL - Data Control Language
DCMI - Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
DCOM - Distributed Component Object Model
DD - Double Density
DDE - Dynamic Data Exchange
DDL - Data Definition Language
DDoS - Distributed Denial of Service
DDR - Double Data Rate
DEC - Digital Equipment Corporation
DES - Data Encryption Standard
dev - device
DFA - Deterministic Finite Automaton
DFD - Data Flow Diagram
DFS - Depth-First Search
DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DHTML - Dynamic HTML
DIMM - Dual Inline Memory Module
DIN - Deutsches Institut für Normung
DIP - Dual In-line Package
DIVX - Digital Video Express
DKIM - Domain Keys Identified Mail
DL - Download
DLL - Dynamic Link Library
DLP - Digital Light Processing
DMA - Direct Memory Access
DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
DML - Data Manipulation Language
DMR - Dennis M. Ritchie
DN - Distinguished Name
DND - Drag-and-Drop
DNS - Domain Name System
DOCSIS - Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification
DOM - Document Object Model
DoS - Denial of Service
DOS - Disk Operating System
DP - Dot Pitch
DPI - Dots Per Inch
DPMI - DOS Protected Mode Interface
DPMS - Display Power Management Signaling
DRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory
DRI - Direct Rendering Infrastructure
DRM - Digital Rights Management
DRM - Direct Rendering Manager
DSDL - Document Schema Definition Languages
DSDM - Dynamic Systems Development Method
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line
DSL - Domain-Specific Language
DSLAM - Digital subscriber line access multiplexer
DSN - Database Source Name (ODBC)
DSN - Dataset Name? (OS/390)
DSP - Digital Signal Processor
DSSSL - Document Style Semantics and Specification Language
DTD - Document Type Definition
DTE - Data Terminal Equipment
DTP - Desktop Publishing
DTR - Data Terminal Ready
DVD - Digital Versatile Disc
DVD - Digital Video Disc
DVD-R - DVD-Recordable
DVD-ROM - DVD-Read Only Memory
DVD-RW - DVD-Rewritable
DVI - Digital Visual Interface
DVR - Digital Video Recorder (see also PVR)
EAI - Enterprise Application Integration
EAP - Extensible Authentication Protocol
EBCDIC - Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
EBML - Extensible Binary Meta Language
ECC - Elliptic Curve Cryptography
ECMA - European Computer Manufacturers Association
EDI - Electronic Data Interchange
EDO - Extended Data Out
EDSAC - Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer
EDVAC - Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
EEPROM - Electronically-Eraseable Programmable Read-Only Memory
EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation
EFI - Extensible Firmware Interface
EFM - Eight-to-Fourteen Modulation
EGA - Enhanced Graphics Array
EGP - Exterior Gateway Protocol
eID - electronic ID card
EIDE - Enhanced IDE
EIGRP - Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
EISA - Extended Industry Standard Architecture
ELF - Extremely Low Frequency
ELF - Executable and Linkable Format
ELM - Electronic Mail
EMACS - Editor Macros
EMS - Expanded Memory Specification
ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer
EOF - End of File
EOL - End of Life
EOL - End of Line
EOM - End of Message
EPROM - Eraseable Programmable Read-Only Memory
ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning
ESCON - Enterprise Systems Connection
ESD - Electrostatic Discharge
ETL - Extract, Transform, Load
ESR - Eric Steven Raymond
EUC - Extended Unix Code
EULA - End User License Agreement
FAP - FORTRAN Assembly Program
FAT - File Allocation Table
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
FBDIMM - Fully Buffered Dual Inline Memory Module
FCB - File Control Block
FDD - Floppy Disk Drive
FDDI - Fiber Distributed Data Interface
FDMA - Frequency-Division Multiple Access
FEC - Forward Error Correction
FEMB - Front-End Motherboard
FET - Field Effect Transistor
FICON - Fiber Connectivity
FIFO - First In First Out
FHS - Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec
FLOPS - FLoating-Point Operations Per Second
FLOSS - Free/Libre/Open Source Software
FOLDOC - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
FOSDEM - Free and Open source Software Developers' European Meeting
FOSI - Formatted Output Specification Instance
FOSS - Free and Open Source Software
FPGA - Field Programmable Gate Array
FPU - Floating Point Unit
FS - File System
FSB - Front Side Bus
FSF - Free Software Foundation
FSM - Finite State Machine
FTTC - Fiber To The Curb
FTTH - Fiber To The Home
FTTP - Fiber To The Premises
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain Name
FUD - Fear Uncertainty Doubt
FWS - Folding White Space
G11N - Globalization
Gb - Gigabit
GB - Gigabyte
GCC - GNU Compiler Collection (formerly GNU C Compiler)
GCJ - GNU Compiler for Java
GCR - Group Code Recording
GDB - GNU Debugger
GDI - Graphics Device Interface
GFDL - GNU Free Documentation License
GIF - Graphics Interchange Format
GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program
GIMPS - Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
GIS - Geographic Information System
GLUT - OpenGL Utility Toolkit
GNOME - GNU Network Object Model Environment
GNU - GNU's Not Unix
GPG - GNU Privacy Guard
GPGPU - General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units
GPIB - General-Purpose Instrumentation Bus
GPL - General Public License
GPL - General-Purpose Language
GPRS - General Packet Radio Service
GPT - GUID PartitionTable
GPU - Graphics Processing Unit
GRUB - Grand Unified Boot-Loader
GSM - Global System for Mobile Communications
GTK+ - GIMP Toolkit
GUI - Graphical User Interface
GUID - Globally Unique IDentifier
GWT - Google Web Toolkit
HAL - Hardware Abstraction Layer
HBA - Host Bus Adapter
HCI - Human Computer Interaction
HD - High Density
HDD - Hard Disk Drive
HD-DVD - High Definition DVD
HDL - Hardware Description Language
HF - High Frequency
HID - Human Interface Device
HIG - Human Interface Guidelines
HIRD - Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth
HMA - High Memory Area
HP - Hewlett-Packard
HPC - High-Performance Computing
HPFS - High Performance File System
HT - Hyper Threading
HTM - Hierarchical Temporal Memory
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP - Hypertext Transport Protocol
HTTPd - Hypertext Transport Protocol Daemon
HURD - Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons
HVD - Holographic Versatile Disc
Hz - Hertz
I18N - Internationalization
IANA - Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
iBCS - Intel Binary Compatibility Standard
IBM - International Business Machines
IC - Integrated Circuit
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
ICE - In-Circuit Emulator
ICE - Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics
ICMP - Internet Control Message Protocol
ICP - Internet Cache Protocol
ICT - Information and Communication Technology
IDE - Integrated Development Environment
IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics
IDL - Interface Definition Language
IE - Internet Explorer
IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IETF - Internet Engineering Task Force
IFL - Integrated Facility for Linux
IGMP - Internet Group Management Protocol
IGRP - Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
IHV - Independent Hardware Vendor
IIOP - Internet Inter-Orb Protocol
IIS - Internet Information Services
IM - Instant Messaging
IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol
IME - Input Method Editor
I/O - Input/Output
IP - Intellectual Property
IP - Internet Protocol
IPC - Inter-Process Communication
IPL - Initial Program Load
IPP - Internet Printing Protocol
IPsec - Internet Protocol security
IPX - Internetwork Packet Exchange
IRC - Internet Relay Chat
IrDA - Infrared Data Association
IRQ - Interrupt Request
IS - Information Systems
ISA - Industry Standard Architechture
ISAM - Indexed Sequential Access Method
ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
ISO - International Organization for Standardization
ISP - Internet Service Provider
ISPF - Interactive System Productivity Facility
ISV - Independent Software Vendor
IT - Information Technology
ITU - International Telecommunication Union
J2CE - Java 2 Cryptographic Edition
J2EE - Java 2 Enterprise Edition
J2ME - Java 2 Micro Edition
J2SE - Java 2 Standard Edition
JAXP - Java API for XML Processing
JBOD - Just a Bunch of Disks
JCL - Job Control Language
JDBC - Java Database Connectivity
JDK - Java Development Kit
JDS - Java Desktop System
JFC - Java Foundation Classes
JFET - Junction Field-Effect Transistor
JFS - Journaling Filesystem
JINI - Jini Is Not Initials
JIT - Just-In-Time
JNI - Java Native Interface
JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group
JRE - Java Runtime Environment
JS - JavaScript
JSON - JavaScript Object Notation
JSP - Jackson Structured Programming
JSP - JavaServer Pages
JTAG - Joint Test Action Group
JVM - Java Virtual Machine
jwz - Jamie Zawinski
JMX - Java Management Extentions
JMS - Java Messaging Service
JUG - Java Users Group
JNDI - Java Naming and Directory Interface
JAXB - Java XML Binding
JAX-RPC - Java XML for Remote Procedure Calls
JCP - Java Community Process
K&R - Kernighan and Ritchie
KB - Keyboard
Kb - Kilobit
KB - Kilobyte
KB - Knowledge Base
KDE - K Desktop Environment
kHz - Kilohertz
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid
KVM - Keyboard, Video, Mouse
L10N - Localization
LAMP - Linux Apache MySQL (Perl, PHP, or Python)
LAN - Local Area Network
LBA - Logical Block Addressing
LCD - Liquid Crystal Display
LCOS - Liquid Crystal On Silicon
LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
LE - Logical Extents
LED - Light-Emitting Diode
LF - Line Feed
LF - Low Frequency
LFS - Linux From Scratch
lib - library
LIF - Low Insertion Force
LIFO - Last In First Out
LILO - Linux Loader
LKML - Linux Kernel Mailing List
LM - LanManager
LGPL - [GNU] Lesser General Public License
LOC - Lines of Code
LPI - Linux Professional Institute
LSB - Least Significant Bit
LSB - Linux Standard Base
LSI - Large-Scale Integration
LTR - Left-to-Right
LUG - Linux User Group
LUN - Logical Unit Number
LV - Logical Volume
LVM - Logical Volume Management
LZW - Lempel-Ziv-Welch
MAC - Mandatory Access Control
MAC - Media Access Control
MAN - Metropolitan Area Network
MANET - Mobile Ad-Hoc Network
MAPI - Messaging Application Programming Interface
Mb - Megabit
MB - Megabyte
MBCS - Multi Byte Character Set
MBR - Master Boot Record
MCA - Micro Channel Architecture
MCSA - Microsoft Certified System Administrator
MCSD - Microsoft Certified System Developer
MCSE - Microsoft Certified System Engineer
MDA - Mail Delivery Agent
MDA - Model-Driven Architecture
MDA - Monochrome Display Adapter
MDI - Multiple Document Interface
ME - [Windows] Millennium Edition
MF - Medium Frequency
MFC - Microsoft Foundation Classes
MFM - Modified Frequency Modulation
MGPT - Machine Generated Problem Tracking
MHz - Megahertz
MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
MIMD - Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data
MIPS - Million Instructions Per Second
MIPS - Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages
MIS - Management Information Systems
MISD - Multiple Instruction, Single Data
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
MMIO - Memory-Mapped I/O
MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
MMU - Memory Management Unit
MMX - Multi-Media Extensions
MNG - Multiple-image Network Graphics
MoBo - Motherboard
MOO - MUD Object Oriented
MOSFET - Metal-Oxide Semiconductor FET
MOTD - Message Of The Day
MPAA - Motion Picture Association of America
MPEG - Motion Pictures (Coding) Experts Group
MPL - Mozilla Public License
MPU - Microprocessor Unit
MS - Memory Stick
MS - Microsoft
MSB - Most Significant Bit
MS-DOS - Microsoft DOS
MT - Machine Translation
MTA - Mail Transfer Agent
MTU - Maximum Transmission nit
MSA - Mail Submission Agent
MSDN - Micrsoft Developer Network
MSI -Medium-Scale Integration
MUA - Mail User Agent
MUD - Multi-User Dungeon
MVC - Model-View-Controller
MVP - Most Valuable Professional
MVS - Multiple Virtual Storage
MX - Mail exchange
NACK - Negative ACKnowedgement
NAK - Negative AcKnowedgement Character
NAS - Network-Attached Storage
NAT - Network Address Translation
NCP - NetWare Core Protocol
NCQ - Native Command Queuing
NCSA - National Center for Supercomputing Applications
NDPS - Novell Distributed Print Services
NDS - Novell Directory Services
NEP - Network Equipment Provider
NEXT - Near-End CrossTalk
NFA - Nondeterministic Finite Automaton
GNSCB - Next-Generation Secure Computing Base
NFS - Network Filesystem
NI - National Instruments
NIC - Network Interface Card
NIM - No Internal Message
NIO - New I/O
NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
NLP - Natural Language Processing
NLS - National Language Support
NP - Non-Deterministic Polynomial-Time
NPL - Netscape Public License
NPU - Network Processing Unit
NS - Netscape
NSA - National Security Agency
NSPR - Netscape Portable Runtime
NMI - Non-Maskable Interrupt
NNTP - Network News Transfer Protocol
NOC - Network Operations Center
NOP - No OPeration
NOS - Network Operating System
NSS - Novell Storage Service
NSS - Network Security Services
NSS - Name Service Switch
NT (Windows) - New Technology
NTFS - NT Filesystem
NTLM - NT Lan Manager
NTP - Network Time Protocol
NUMA - Non-Uniform Memory Access
NURBS - Nonuniform Rational B-Spline
NVRAM - Non-Volatile Random Access Memory
OASIS - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
ODBC - Open Database Connectivity
OEM - Original Equipment Manufacturer
OFTC - Open and Free Technology Community
OLAP - Online Analytical Processing
OLE - Object Linking and Embedding
OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diode
OLTP - Online Transaction Processing
OMG - Object Management Group
OO - Object-Oriented
OO - Open Office
OOo - OpenOffice.org
OOP - Object-Oriented Programming
OPML - Outline Processor Markup Language
ORB - Object Request Broker
OS - Open Source
OS - Operating System
OSCON - O'Reilly Open Source Convention
OSDN - Open Source Developer Network
OSI - Open Source Initiative
OSI - Open Systems Interconnection
OSPF - Open Shortest Path First
OSS - Open Sound System
OSS - Open-Source Software
OSS - Operational Support Systems
OSTG - Open Source Technology Group (formerly OSDN)
OUI - Organizationally Unique Identifier
P2P - Peer-To-Peer
PAN - Personal Area Network
PAP - Password Authentication Protocol
PARC - Palo Alto Research Center
PATA - Parallel ATA
PC - Personal Computer
PCB - Printed Circuit Board
PCB - Process Control Block
PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect
PCIe - PCI Express
PCMCIA - Personal Computer Memory Card International Association
PCM - Pulse-Code Modulation
PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
PD - Public Domain
PDA - Personal Digital Assistant
PDF - Portable Document Format
PDP - Programmed Data Processor
PE - Physical Extents
PERL - Practical Extraction and Reporting Language
PGA - Pin Grid Array
PGP - Pretty Good Privacy
PHP - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
PIC - Peripheral Interface Controller
PID - Proportional-Integral-Derivative
PID - Process ID
PIM - Personal Information Manager
PINE - Program for Internet News & Email
PIO - Programmed Input/Output
PKCS - Public Key Cryptography Standards
PKI - Public Key Infrastructure
PLC - Power Line Communication
PLC - Programmable Logic Controller
PLD - Programmable Logic Device
PL/I - Programming Language One
PL/M - Programming Language for Microcomputers
PL/P - Programming Language for Prime
PLT - Power Line Telecoms
PMM - Personal Memory Manager
PMM - POST Memory Manager
PNG - Portable Network Graphics
PnP - Plug-and-Play
PoE - Power over Ethernet
POP - Point of Presence
POP3 - Post Office Protocol v3
POSIX - Portable Operating System Interface
POST - Power-On Self Test
PPC - PowerPC
PPI - Pixels Per Inch
PPP - Point-to-Point Protocol
PPPoA - PPP over ATM
PPPoE - PPP over Ethernet
PPTP - Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol
PS - PostScript
PS/2 - Personal System/2
PSU - Power Supply Unit
PSVI - Post-Schema-Validation Infoset
PV - Physical Volume
PVG - Physical Volume Group
PVR - Personal Video Recorder
PXE - Pre Execution Environment
PXI - PCI Extensions for Instrumentation
QDR - Quad Data Rate
QA - Quality Assurance
QoS - Quality of Service
QOTD - Quote of the Day
Qt - Quasar Toolkit
RACF - Resource Access Control Facility
RAD - Rapid Application Development
RADIUS - Remote Authentication Dial In User Service
RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
RAIT - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Tapes
RAM - Random Access Memory
RARP - Reverse Address Resolution Protocol
RC - Release Candidate
RC - Run Commands
RC - Runtime Configuration
RCS - Revision Control System
RDBMS - Relational Database Management System
RDF - Resource Description Framework
REFAL - REcursive Functions Algorithmic Language
REST - Representational State Transfer
regex - Regular Expression
RF - Radio Frequency
RFC - Request For Comments
RFE - Request For Enhancement
RFI - Radio Frequency Interference
RFID - Radio Frequency Identification
RGB - Red, Green, Blue
RGBA - Red, Green, Blue, Alpha
RHL - Red Hat Linux
RHEL - Red Hat Enterprise Linux
RIA - Rich Internet Application
RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America
RIP - Raster Image Processor
RIP - Routing Information Protocol
RISC - Reduced Instruction Set Computer
RLE - Run-Length Encoding
RLL - Run Length Limited
RMI - Remote Method Invocation
RMS - Richard Matthew Stallman
ROM - Read Only Memory
ROMB - Read-Out Motherboard
RPC - Remote Procedure Call
RPM - RPM Package Manager
RSA - Rivest Shamir Adleman
RSI - Repetitive Strain Injury
RSS - Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication
RTC - Real-Time Clock
RTL - Right-to-Left
RTOS - Real Time Operating System
RTS - Ready To Send
SAN - Storage Area Network
SATA - Serial ATA
SAX - Simple API for XML
sbin - superuser binary
SCADA - Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition
SCID - Source Code in Database
SCM - Software Configuration Management
SCP - Secure Copy
SCPI - Standard Commands for Programmable Instrumentation
SCSI - Small Computer System Interface
SD - Secure Digital
SDDL - Security Descriptor Definition Language
SDI - Single Document Interface
SDIO - Secure Digital Input Output
SDK - Software Development Kit
SDL - Simple DirectMedia Layer
SDN - Service Delivery Network
SDR - Software-Defined Radio
SDRAM - Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory
SDSL - Symmetric DSL
SEAL - Semantics-directed Environment Adaptation Language
SEI - Software Engineering Institute
SFTP - Secure FTP
SFTP - Simple File Transfer Protocol
SFTP - SSH File Transfer Protocol
SGI - Silicon Graphics, Incorporated
SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language
SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm
SIGGRAPH - Special Interest Group on Graphics,
SIMD - Single Instruction, Multiple Data
SIMM - Single Inline Memory Module
SIP - Session Initiation Protocol
SIP - Supplementary Ideographic Plane
SISD - Single Instruction, Single Data
SLI - Scalable Link Interface
SLIP - Serial Line Internet Protocol
SLM - Service Level Management
SLOC - Source Lines of Code
SPMD - Single Program, Multiple Data
SMA - SubMiniature version A
SMB - Server Message Block
SMBIOS - System Management BIOS
SMC - SMC Networks (company)
SMIL - Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
S/MIME - Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
SMP - Supplementary Multilingual Plane
SMP - Symmetric Multi-Processing
SMS - Short Message Service
SMT - Simultaneous Multithreading
SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SNA - Systems Network Architecture
SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol
SOA - Service-Oriented Architecture
SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol
SoC - System-on-a-Chip
SO-DIMM - Small Outline DIMM
SOI - Silicon On Insulator
SP - Service Pack
SPA - Single Page Application
SPF - Sender Policy Framework
SPI - Stateful Packet Inspection
SPARC - Scalable Processor Architecture
SQL - Structured Query Language
SRAM - Static Random Access Memory
SSD - Software Specification Document
SSH - Secure Shell
SSI - Server Side Includes
SSI - Single-System Image
SSI - Small-Scale Integration
SSID - Service Set Identifier
SSL - Secure Socket Layer
SSP - Supplementary Special-purpose Plane
su - superuser
SUS - Single UNIX Specification
SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics
SVGA - Super Video Graphics Array
SWT - Stardard Widget Toolkit
TAO - Track at Once
TB - Terabyte
Tcl - Tool Command Language
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol
TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TCU - Telecommunication Control Unit
TDMA - Time Division Multiple Access
temp - temporary (variable, file, directory, etc.)
TEOS - Trusted Email Open Standard
TFT - Thin Film Transistor
TI - Texas Instruments
Tk -
TLA - Three-Letter Acronym
TLD - Top-Level Domain
TLS - Thread-Local Storage
TLS - Transport Layer Security
tmp - temporary (variable, file, directory, etc.)
TNC - Terminal Node Controller
TNC - Threaded Neill-Concelman
TSO - Time Sharing Option
TSP - Traveling Salesman Problem
TSR - Terminate and Stay Resident
TTA - True Tap Audio
TTL - Transistor-Transistor Logic
TTL - Time To Live
TTS - Text-to-Speech
TTY - Teletype
TUCOWS - The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software
TUG - TeX Users Group
UAAG - User Agent Accessibility Guidelines
UART - Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter
UCS - Universal Character Set
UDDI - Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration
UDMA - Ultra DMA
UDP - User Datagram Protocol
UE - User Experience
UEFI - Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
UHF - Ultra High Frequency
UI - User Interface
UL - Upload
ULA - Uncommitted Logic Array
UMA - Upper Memory Area
UMB - Upper Memory Block
UML - Unified Modeling Language
UML - User-Mode Linux
UMPC - Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer
UNC - Universal Naming Convention
UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply
URI - Uniform Resource Identifier
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
URN - Uniform Resource Name
USB - Universal Serial Bus
usr - user
USR - U.S. Robotics
UTC - Coordinated Universal Time
UTF - Unicode Transformation Format
UUCP - Unix to Unix Copy
UUID - Universally Unique Identifier
UVC - Universal Virtual Computer
var - variable
VAX - Virtual Address eXtension
VCPI - Virtual Control Program Interface
VR - Virtual Reality
VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language
VB - Visual Basic
VBA - Visual Basic for Applications
VBS - Visual Basic Script
VESA - Video Electronics Standards Association
VFAT - Virtual FAT
VFS - Virtual File System
VG - Volume Group
VGA - Video Graphics Array
VHF - Very High Frequency
VLB - Vesa Local Bus
VLF - Very Low Frequency
VLSI - Very-Large-Scale Integration
VM - Virtual Machine
VM - Virtual Memory
VOD - Video On Demand
VoIP - Voice over IP
VPN - Virtual Private Network
VPU - Visual Processing Unit
VSAM - Virtual Storage Access Method
VSAT - Very Small Aperture Terminal
VT - Video Terminal?
VTAM - Virtual Telecommunications Access Method
W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
WAFS - Wide Area File Services
WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative
WAIS - Wide Area Information Server
WAN - Wide Area Network
WAP - Wireless Access Point
WAP - Wireless Application Protocol
WAV - WAVEform audio format
WBEM - Web-Based Enterprise Management
WCAG - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
WCF - Windows Communication Foundation
WDM - Wavelength Division Multiplexing
WebDAV - WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning
WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy
Wi-Fi - Wireless Fidelity
WiMAX - Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
WinFS - Windows Future Storage
WINS- Windows Internet Naming Service
WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network
WMA - Windows Media Audio
WOL - Wake-on-LAN
WOM - Wake-on-Modem
WOR - Wake-on-Ring
WPA - Wi-Fi Protected Access
WPAN - Wireless Personal Area Network
WPF - Windows Presentation Foundation
WSDL - Web Services Description Language
WSFL - Web Services Flow Language
WUSB - Wireless Universal Serial Bus
WWAN - Wireless Wide Area Network
WWID - World Wide Identifier
WWN - World Wide Name
WWW - World Wide Web
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
WZC - Wireless Zero Configuration
XAG - XML Accessibility Guidelines
XAML - eXtensible Application Markup Language
XDM - X Window Display Manager
XDMCP - X Display Manager Control Protocol
XCBL - XML Common Business Library
XHTML - eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language
XML - eXtensible Markup Language
XMMS - X Multimedia System
XMPP - eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
XMS - Extended Memory Specification
XNS - Xerox Network Services
XP - Cross-Platform
XP - Extreme Programming
XPCOM - Cross Platform Component Object Model
XPI - Cross Platform Installer
XPIDL - Cross Platform IDL
XSD - XML Schema Definition
XSL - eXtensible Stylesheet Language
XSL-FO - eXtensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects
XSLT - XSL Transformations
XSS - Cross Site Scripting
XTF - Extensible Tag Framework
XUL - XML-based User-interface Language
Y2K - Year Two Thousand
YACC - Yet Another Compiler Compiler
YAML - YAML Ain't Markup Language
YAST - Yet Another Setup Tool
ZCAV - Zone Constant Angular Velocity
ZCS - Zero Code Suppression
ZIF - Zero Insertion Force
ZIFS - Zero Insertion Force Socket
ZISC - Zero Instruction Set Computer
ZOPE - Z Object Publishing Environment
ZMA - Zone Multicast Address

Chris Angulo

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Thursday, January 31, 2013

Abbreviation Definition, What is an Abbreviation

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