List of acronyms: 0–9

This list contains acronyms, initialisms and pseudo-blends.

For the purposes of this list, an acronym is an abbreviation pronounced as a series of constituent letters; an initialism is an abbreviation whose pronunciation is wholly or partly the names of constituent letters; and a pseudo-blend is an abbreviation whose extra or omitted letters means that it cannot be considered a true acronym, initialism, or portmanteau (a word formed by combining two or more words).

(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

(s) = symbol (none of the above, stands for and is read as something else; for example: MHz - Megahertz)

Add new entries here

Please add your own, in a quasi-dictionary order with lowercase treated the same as uppercase and ignoring non-alphanumeric characters (hyphens and such). This means that only alphanumeric characters have any significance in determining order, and that lowercase letters occupy the same ordering position as uppercase (in tie-breaker cases, list lower case first). For example: Algol appears before ALS. (This differs from a strict ASCII ordering.)

0-9

• 2D - (i) Two-Dimensional
• 2.5D - (p) "Two-and-a-half-dee": two-dimensional computer graphics imitating 3D
• 2G - (i) Second-generation mobile (cellular, wireless) telephone system
• 2.5G - (p) 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

• A - (s) Ampere
• A2ATD or A²ATD - (i) Anti-Armour Advanced Technology Demonstration
• A2C2 or A²C² - (i) Army Airspace Command and Control
• A4 - (i) many, including a European standard office paper size; see entry

AA

• AA - (i) Achieved Availability - Alcoholics Anonymous - Assembly Area - Automobile Association - (s) Armed Forces Americas (postal symbol)
• AAA - (i) Administration, Authorization, and Authentication - American Automobile Association ("Triple-A") - Anti-Aircraft Artillery
• AAAV - (i) Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle
• AAD - (i) Analogue Analogue Digital (CD quality) - Australian Antarctic Division
• AADC - (i) Area Air Defence Commander
• AAFC - (i) U.S. Army Air Corps Ferrying Command (1941-1942)
• AAIS - (i) Advanced Airborne Interceptor Simulator
• AAM - (i) Air-to-Air Missile
• AAODL - (i) Atmospheric Aerosols and Optics Data Library
• AAP - (i) Advanced Acquisition Plan - Allied Administrative Publication
• AAR - (i) Association of American Railroads
• AARP - (i) formerly American Association of Retired Persons, but now officially known only by the initials
• AAS - (i) Advanced Automation System - American Astronomical Society; pronounced "Double-A S"
• AAV - (i) Amphibious Assault Vehicle
• AAWC - (i) Anti-Air Warfare Commander

AB

• AB - (s) Alberta (postal symbol)
• 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 (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
• ABIN - (a) Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Brazilian Intelligence Agency)
• 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 and used for taxation purposes)
• ABS - (i) acrylonitrile butadiene styrene - Anti-lock Braking System
• ABW - (s) Aruba (ISO 3166 trigram)

AC

• Ac - (s) Actinium
• AC - (i) Adriamycin-Cyclophosphamide (chemotherapy) - Air Conditioning - Albert Champion - Alternating Current - Anonymous Coward - ante Christum (Latin, "before Christ"; see BC) - ante cibum (Latin, "before meals") - (s) Antigua and Barbuda (NATO country code) - (i) Associazione Calcio (Italian, "football (soccer) club")
• A/C - (i) Aircraft
• ACA - (i) Airspace Control Authority - Airspace Co-ordination Area
• ACARS - (a) Aircraft Communication Reporting System
• ACC - (i) U.S. Air Combat Command - Atlantic Coast Conference - Automatic Climate Control
• ACCA - (i) Automatic Cloud Cover Assessment
• ACCAC - (a) Awdurdod Cymwysterau, Cwricwlwm ac Asesu Cymru (Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales)
• ACE - (a) Air Combat Emulator (computer game) - Automatic Computing Engine
• ACES - (a) Aerolineas Centrales de Colombia
• ACID - (a) Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (in databases)
• ACF - (i) American Car and Foundry - 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) many, including Association for Computing Machinery; see entry
• ACN - (i) Airborne Communications Node - Australian Company Number (number issued by the Australian government as registration of a limited liability company)
• ACO - (i) Airspace Control Order
• ACORN - (i) Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
• ACP - (i) Air Control Point
• ACS - (i) Affiliated Computer Services (NYSE ACS) - American Cancer Society - American Chemical Society - Association of Caribbean States
• ACTU - (i) Australian Council of Trade Unions
• ACV - (i) Armoured Combat Vehicle

AD-AE

• AD - (i) Air Defence - (s) Andorra (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Latin, Anno Domini ("In the year of our Lord")
• A/D - (i) Analog/Digital
• ADA - (i) Air Defence Artillery - American Dental Association - Americans with Disabilities Act (see also the similar but non-acronymic Ada programming language)
• ADAT - (i) Alesis Digital Audio Tape (recording format)
• ADatP - (p) Automated Data Processing
• ADATS - (i) Agricultural Development and Training Society - Air Defence Anti-Tank System - Australian Defence Air Traffic System
• ADC - (i) U.S. Air Defense Command (1946-1992) - Apple Display Connector
• ADD - (i) Analogue Digital Digital (CD quality) - Attention-Deficit Disorder
• ADHD - (i) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• ADHS - (i) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome
• ADIZ - (a/i) Air Defence Identification Zone
• ADL - (i) Anti-Defamation League
• ad loc. - (p) ad locum (Latin, "to/at the place")
• ADM - (i) Administrative - Archer Daniels Midland
• ADOA - (a/i) Air Defence Operations Area
• ADP - (i) Adenosine DiPhosphate - Automatic/Automated Data Processing
• ADS - (a/i) Astrophysics Data System - Attention Deficit Syndrome
• ADT - (i) Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
• adv. - (p) adversus (Latin, "against")
• ADW - (i) Air Defence Warning
• AE - (s) Armed Forces Africa/Canada/Europe/Middle East (postal symbol) - United Arab Emirates (ISO 3166 digram)
• AEF - (i) American Expeditionary Force
• AEI-T - (i) Army Enterprise Infostructure-Transport
• aeq. - (p) aequalis (Latin, "equal")
• aet. - (p) aetatis (Latin, "of age", "aged")
• AEW - (i) Airborne Electronic Warfare - Airborne Early Warning

AF-AG

• AF - (s) Afghanistan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Air Force
• 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
• AFG - (s) Afghanistan (ISO 3166 trigram)
• AFI - (s) French Territory of the Afars and Issas (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete since 1977)
• 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
• AFSCN - (i) Air Force Satellite Control Network
• AFV - (i) Armoured Fighting Vehicle
• Ag - (s) Silver (Latin argentum)
• AG - (i) Aktiengesellschaft (German for incorporated) - (s) Algeria (NATO country code) - Antigua and Barbuda (ISO 3166 digram)
• 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
• AGI - (i) Auxiliary Group Intelligence
• AGL - (i) Above Ground Level
• AGM - (i) Annual General Meeting
• AGO - (s) Angola (ISO 3166 trigram)
• AGP - (i) Accelerated Graphics Port
• AGS - (i) Alaska Ground Station (LandSat)

AI-AM

• AI - (i) Air Interdiction - (s) Anguilla (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Amnesty International - Artificial Insemination - Artificial Intelligence
• AIA - (i) Aerospace Industry Association - (s) Anguilla (ISO 3166 trigram)
• AIC - (i) African Independent Church
• AICMFP - (i) And I Claim My Five Pounds
• AIDS - (a) Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
• AIM - (a) many, including AOL Instant Messenger; see entry
• AIPAC - (i) American Israel Public Affairs Committee
• AJ - (s) Azerbaijan (NATO country code)
• AK - (s) Alaska (postal symbol)
• aka - (i) also known as
• AKDT - (p) Alaska Standard Daylight Saving Time (UTC-8 hours)
• AKST - (p) Alaska Standard Time (UTC-9 hours)
• Al - (s) Aluminium
• AL - (s) Alabama (postal symbol) - Albania (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) 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)
• ALA - (s) Åland Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ALAP - (a) As Long/Late As Possible
• ALARM - (a) Air-Launched Anti-Radar Missile
• ALB - (s) Albania (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ALERT - (a) Attack and Launch Early Reporting to Theatre
• ALGOL - (p) ALGOrithmic Language
• ALOC - (a) Air Lines Of Communication
• ALS - (i) Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
• Am - (s) Americium
• AM - (i) many, including Amplitude Modulation and ante meridiem; see entry - (s) Armenia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• AMA - (i) American Medical Association
• AMC - (i) U.S. Air Mobility Command - American Motors Company - U.S. Army Materiel Command
• 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

• AN - (s) Andorra (NATO country code) - Netherland Antilles (ISO 3166 digram)
• ANA - (a) All Nippon Airways - Anti-Nuclear Anti-body
• ANC - (i) African National Congress
• AND - (s) Andorra (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ANGLiCo - (p) Air/Naval Gunfire Liaison Company
• ANM - (i) Acoustic Noise Monitor
• ANOVA - (p) ANalysis Of VAriance
• ANS - (i) Applied and Natural Sciences
• ANSI - (a) American National Standards Institute
• ANT - (s) Netherland Antilles (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ANZAC - (a) Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
• AO - (s) Angola (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Area of Operations
• AOC - (i) Air Operations Centre
• AOL - (i) America OnLine
• AOR - (i) Area Of Responsibility
• AP - (i) Advanced Placement - (s) Armed Forces Pacific (postal symbol) - (i) Associated Press
• APB - (i) All Points Bulletin (police jargon)
• APC - (i) Armoured Personnel Carrier
• APFSDS - (i) Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding Sabot (ammunition)
• APM - (i) Advanced Power Management
• APOD - (i) Aerial Port Of Debarkation
• APOE - (i) Aerial Port Of Embarkation
• APP - (i) Allied Procedural Publication
• AQ - (s) Antarctica (ISO 3166 digram)
• Ar - (s) Argon
• AR - (s) Argentina (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Arkansas (postal symbol) - Armour
• ARE - (s) United Arab Emirates (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ARG - (s) Argentina (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ARM - (a) Anti-Radiation Missile - (s) Armenia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ARSC - (i) Arctic Region Supercomputing Center
• ARSPACE - (p) U.S. Army Space Command

AS

• As - (s) Arsenic
• AS - (s) American Samoa (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram) - Australia (NATO country code)
• ASA - (i) AcetylSalicylic 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) Army Service Component Commander - Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator
• ASCII - (a) American Standard Code for Information Interchange
• ASDR - (i) Attack, Sustain, Decay, Release (sound envelope specification)
• ASEAN - (a) Association of SouthEast Asian Nations
• ASFAR - (a) Americans for a Society Free of Age Restrictions
• ASG - (i) Area Support Group
• 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 Office
• ASL - (i) Above Sea Level - American Sign Language (also known as Ameslan)
• ASM - (i) Air-to-Surface Missile - (s) American Samoa (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ASP - (i) Active Server Pages - Ammunition Supply Point - Application Service Provider (cf ISP)
• ASPO - (i) U.S. Army Space Program Office
• ASPS - (i) Airborne Self Protection System
• ASQ - (a) American Society for Quality
• ASR - (i) Alternate Supply Route
• 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)
• ASUW - (p) AntiSUrface Warfare
• ASW - (i) AntiSubmarine Warfare

AT-AZ

• At - (s) Astatine
• AT - (i) Anti-Tank - (s) Austria (ISO 3166 digram)
• ATA - (s) Antarctica (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ATAC - (a) Air Transportable Acoustic Communications
• ATACMS - (p) Army TACtical Missile System
• ATAS - (a) Air-To-Air Stinger (missile)
• ATB - (i) Active Time Battle - (s) British Antarctic Territory (ISO 3166 trigram; merged with AQ in 1979)
• ATC - (i) Air Traffic Control - U.S. Air Transport Command (1942-1948)
• ATCCIS - (i) Army Tactical Command and Control Information System
• ATF - (s) French Southern and Antarctic Territories (ISO 3166 trigram; split into AQ and TF in 1979)
• ATG - (s) Antigua and Barbuda (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ATI - (i) Allied Telesyn International, Inc.
• ATM - (i) Automated Teller Machine - Asynchronous Transfer Mode - At The Moment
• ATN - (s) Dronning Maud Land (ISO 3166 trigram; merged with AQ in 1983)
• ATO - (i) Air Tasking Order
• ATP - (i) Adenosine TriPhosphate - Allied Tactical Publication - Ammunition Transfer Point
• AT&T - (i) American Telephone and Telegraph (U.S. company, aka "Ma Bell")
• ATV - (i) All-Terrain Vehicle
• Au - (s) Gold
• AU - (s) Astronomical Unit - Australia (ISO 3166 digram) - Austria (NATO country code)
• AUC - (i) Ab Urbe Condita / Anno Urbis Conditae (Latin "from the founding of the city" / "in the year since the founding of the city") (of Rome) - Area Under the Curve (concentration time curve; medicine)
• AUS - (s) Australia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• AUT - (s) Austria (ISO 3166 trigram)
• AV - (s) Aviation
• AVI - (i) Audio Video Interleave
• AVIM - (p) Aviation Intermediate Maintenance
• AVO - (i) Apprehended Violence Order
• AVUM - (p) Aviation Unit Maintenance
• AW - (s) Aruba (ISO 3166 digram)
• AWACS - (a) Airborne Warning And Control System
• AWD - (i) many, including All Wheel Drive; see entry
• AWOL - (a) Absent Without Official Leave - Absent Without Leave (military jargon)
• AX - (s) Åland Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• AXP - (p) Ambulance eXchange Point
• AYU - (i) As Yet Unknown
• AZ - (s) Arizona (postal symbol) - Azerbaijan (ISO 3166 digram)
• AZE - (s) Azerbaijan (ISO 3166 trigram)

B

• B - (s) Bel - Boron
• B2B - (i) Business-to-business electronic commerce
• B2C - (i) Business-to-consumer electronic commerce
• B2E - (i) Business-to-employee electronic commerce
• B&W - (i) Babcock & Wilcox - Black and White - Bowers & Wilkins

BA-BC

• Ba - (s) Barium
• BA - (i) Bachelor of Arts - (s) Bahrain (NATO country code) - Bosnia and Herzegovina (ISO 3166 digram)
• BAA - (i) British Airport Authority
• BAE - (p) BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace, BAe)
• BAI - (i) Battlefield Air Interdiction
• BALCO - (p) Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative
• BAR - (a) British American Racing - Browning Automatic Rifle - Buy-American restrictions
• BART - (a) Bay Area Rapid Transit
• BAS - (i) Battalion Aid Station
• BASE - (a) Building, Antenna, Span, Earth (parachute 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 - (s) Barbados (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code) - (i) Boys' Brigade (Christian youth organisation) - Brigitte Bardot (actress)
• BBB - (i) Better Business Bureau - Blood-Brain Barrier
• BBC - (i) British Broadcasting Corporation
• BBQ - (i) Barbeque
• BC - (i) Before Christ - Blind Copy (in emailers) - Boston College - (s) Botswana (NATO country code; from Bechuanaland) - British Columbia (postal symbol)
• BCC - (i) Blind Carbon Copy
• BCCI - (i) Board of Control for Cricket in India
• BCD - (i) Binary-Coded Decimal
• BCE - (i) Banque centrale européenne - Battlefield Co-ordination Element - Before Common Era - British Columbia Electric Railway
• BCER - (i) British Columbia Electric Railway
• BCFG - (s) Patchy Fog (METAR Code)
• BCIS - (i) Battlefield Combat Identification System
• BCPL - (i) BCPL programming language (progenitor of C)
• BCS - (i) Bowl Championship Series (US college football)
• BCT - (i) Brigade Combat Team

BD-BI

• BD - (s) Bangladesh (ISO 3166 digram)
• BDA - (i) British Dental Association
• BDFL - (i) Benevolent Dictator For Life
• BDI - (s) Burundi (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BDNF - (i) Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
• BDO - (i) Battle Dress Overgarment
• BDOS - (a) Basic Disk Operating System; part of CP/M
• BDU - (i) Battle-Dress Uniform
• Be - (s) Beryllium
• BE - (s) Belgium (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• BEA - (i) British European Airways (ancestor of British Airways)
• BEL - (s) Belgium (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BEN - (s) Benin (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BER - (i) Bit Error Rate
• BESS - (i) Business, Education, and Social Sciences
• BF - (s) The Bahamas (NATO country code) - Burkina Faso (ISO 3166 digram)
• BFA - (s) Burkina Faso (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BG - (s) Bangladesh (NATO country code) - Bulgaria (ISO 3166 digram)
• BGD - (s) Bangladesh (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BGR - (s) Bulgaria (ISO 3166 trigram)
• Bh - (s) Bohrium
• BH - (s) Bahrain (ISO 3166 digram) - Belize (NATO country code)
• BHR - (s) Bahrain (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BHS - (s) The Bahamas (ISO 3166 trigram)
• Bi - (s) Bismuth
• BI - (s) Burundi (ISO 3166 digram)
• BIAP - (a) Baghdad International Airport
• BID - (i) bis in die (Latin, "twice a day")
• BIH - (s) Bosnia and Herzegovina (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BIOS - (a) Basic Input/Output System
• BIP - (a) Battlefield Interoperability Programme (ancestor of MIP)
• BIST - (a) Built-In Self-Test
• BIT - (i) Bilateral Investment Treaty - Built-In Test

BJ-BN

• BJ - (s) Benin (ISO 3166 digram)
• BJT - (i) Bipolar Junction Transistor
• Bk - (s) Berkelium
• BK - (s) Bosnia and Herzegovina (NATO country code)
• BKN - (s) Broken Sky (METAR Code)
• BL - (s) Bolivia (NATO country code)
• BLDU - (s) Blowing Dust (METAR Code)
• BLR - (s) Belarus (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BLSA - (s) Blowing Sand (METAR Code)
• BLSN - (s) Blowing Snow (METAR Code)
• BLUI - (a/i) Body Language User Interface
• BLZ - (s) Belize (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BM - (i) Battle Management - (s) Bermuda (ISO 3166 digram) - Myanmar (NATO country code; from Burma)
• BMCC - (i) Borough of Manhattan Community College
• BME - (i) Biomedical Engineering
• BMI - (i) Body Mass Index - Broadcast Music Incorporated
• BML - (i) Battle Management Language
• BMU - (s) Bermuda (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BMW - (i) Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Works)
• BMX - (i) Bicycle/Bike Moto(r) Cross
• Bn - (s) Battalion
• BN - (s) Brunei (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• BNF - (i) Backus-Naur Form (computing)
• BNS - (i) Bank of Nova Scotia
• BNSF - (i) Burlington Northern Santa Fe

BO-BR

• BO - (s) Belarus (NATO country code) - Bolivia (ISO 3166 digram)
• BO2k - (i) Back Orifice 2000
• BOAC - (i) British Overseas Airways Corporation (predecessor of British Airways)
• BOAT - (p) 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
• BOL - (s) Bolivia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BOM - (a) Base Object Model
• BOP - (i) Balance of Payments
• BOS - (i) Battlefield Operating System
• BOT - (i) Balance of Trade
• BP - (i) British Petroleum (today, BP doesn't officially stand for anything) - (s) Solomon Islands (NATO country code; from British Protectorate of the Solomon Islands)
• BPM - (i) Beats Per Minute
• BQ - (s) British Antarctic Territory (ISO 3166 digram; merged with AQ in 1979)
• Br - (s) Bromine
• BR - (s) Brazil (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• BRA - (s) Brazil (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BRB - (s) Barbados (ISO 3166 trigram) - (i) "Be Right Back" (Internet chat abbreviation)
• BRFSS - (p) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (a CDC health survey covering the US and US territories; pronounced "BURF us")
• BRN - (s) Brunei (ISO 3166 trigram)

BS-BZ

• BS - (s) The Bahamas (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Bull Shit
• BSA - (i) Birmingham Small Arms (motorcycles company) - Boy Scouts of America - Brigade Support Area
• 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) Bathythermograph - (s) Bhutan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) BitTorrent - British Telecommunications plc
• BTN - (s) Bhutan (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BTO - (i) Built To Order
• BTU - (s) British thermal unit
• BTW - (i) By The Way
• BU - (s) Bulgaria (NATO country code) - Burma (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete since 1989)
• BUR - (s) Burma (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete since 1989)
• BV - (i) Background vocals
• BV - (s) Bouvet Island (ISO 3166 digram)
• BVR - (i) Beyond Visual Range
• BVT - (s) Bouvet Island (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BW - (s) Botswana (ISO 3166 digram)
• BWA - (s) Botswana (ISO 3166 trigram)
• BWARS - (a) Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society
• BWR - (i) boiling-water reactor
• BX - (s) Brunei (NATO country code)
• BY - (s) Burundi (NATO country code) - Belarus (ISO 3166 digram)
• BYOB - (i) Bring Your Own Beverages/Bottle
• BYOC - (i) Bring Your Own Computer (play on BYOB)
• BYS - (s) Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete since 1992)
• BYU - (i) Brigham Young University
• BZ - (s) Belize (ISO 3166 digram)

C

• C - (s) Carbon - Coulomb
• C2 or C² - (i) Command and Control
• C2IEDM or C²IEDM - (i) Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model
• C2IS or C⁴IS - (i) Command and Control Information System
• C2V or C²V - (i) Command and Control Vehicle
• C2W or C²W - (i) Command and Control Warfare
• C3 or C³ - (i) Command, Control, and Communications
• C3I or C³I - (i) Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence
• C4I or C⁴I - (i) Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence
• C4ISR or C⁴ISR - (i) Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

CA-CD

• Ca - (s) Calcium
• CA - (s) California (postal symbol) - Canada (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Catalonia - (i) Civil Affairs - Counter-Air
• CAC - (i) California Association of Criminalists
• CAD - (a) Computer-aided design - Computer-aided dispatch
• CAF - (s) Central African Republic (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CAFAD - (a) Combined Arms For Air Defence
• CAIR - (i) Council on American-Islamic Relations
• CALABARZON - (p) A region in the Philippines: CAvite, LAguna, BAtangas, Rizal, queZON
• CAM - (a) Chemical Agent Monitor
• CAMRA - (p) CAMpaign for Real Ale
• CAN - (s) Canada (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CANDU - (p) CANada Deuterium Uranium (nuclear reactor design)
• CAP - (i) Combat Air Patrol - Common [Operating/Operational] Air Picture - Crisis Action Procedures
• CAPES - (a) Combined Arms Planning and Execution System
• CARE - (a) Cooperative for Aid and Relief Everywhere (originally Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe)
• CARP - (a) Computed Air Release Point
• CART - (a) Championship Auto Racing Teams (now defunct)
• CAS - (i) Close Air Support
• CASS - (a) Command Activated Sonobuoy System
• CASTOR - (a) Canadian Automatic Small Telescopes for Orbital Research
• CATK - (p) Counterattack
• CAV - (p) Cavalry
• CAW - (i) Canadian Auto Workers trade union
• CB - (s) Cambodia (NATO country code) - (i) Citizens' Band radio
• CBC - (i) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - Cipher-block chaining
• CBE - (i) Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• CBM - (i) many, including Canadian Baptist Ministries and Commodore Business Machines; see entry
• CBML - (i) Coalition Battle Management Language
• CBT - (i) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy - (p) Combat
• CC - (i) many, including carbon copy; see entry
• CCCP - (i) Central Committee of the Communist Party - Cyrillic for SSSR (СССР, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)
• CCD - (i) Charge-Coupled Device
• CCK - (s) Cocos (Keeling) Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CCOP - (i) Coalition Common Operating/Operational Picture
• CCP - (i) Casualty Collection Point - Communications Checkpoint - Contingency Communications Package
• CCRAp - (p) Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party
• CCRP - (i) Command and Control Research Program
• CCRTS - (i) Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium
• CCSCS - (i) Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems
• CCSIL - (i) Command and Control Simulation Interface Language
• CCSK - (i) Cyclic Code Shift Keying
• cd - (s) Candela
• Cd - (s) Cadmium
• CD - (i) many, including Compact Disc; see entry
• CDC - (i) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Control Data Corporation
• CDE - (i) Chemical Defence Equipment
• CDF - (i) California Department of Forestry [and Fire Protection]
• Cdr - (p) Commander
• Cdt - (p) Commandant

CE-CH

• Ce - (s) Cerium
• CE - (i) [many meanings, including Christian/Common Era (cf. AD); see entry]
• CENTO - (a) Central Treaty Organization (Baghdad Pact)
• CEO - (i) Chief Executive Officer
• CEP - (i) Circular Error Probable
• CEPT - (a/i) Conference européenne des administrations 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) confer (Latin "compare", or "see also")
• Cf - (s) Californium
• CF - (i) Canadian Forces - (s) Central African Republic (ISO 3166 digram) - Republic of the Congo (NATO country code)
• CFA - (i) Cat Fanciers' Association - Chartered Financial Analyst - Colour Filtering Array - County Fire Authority - Covering Force Area
• CFG - (i) Context-Free Grammar - Control Flow Graph
• CFL - (i) Canadian Football League - Co-ordinated Fire Line
• CFLCC - (i) Coalition Forces Land Component Command
• CFO - (i) Chief Financial Officer
• CFS - (i) Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• CFSP - (i) Common Foreign and Security Policy
• CG - (i) Computer Graphics - (s) Democratic Republic of the Congo (NATO country code) - Republic of the Congo (ISO 3166 digram)
• CGM - (i) Computer Graphics Metafile
• CGT - (i) Capital Gains Tax
• CH - (s) China (NATO country code) - Switzerland (ISO 3166 digram; from Confédération helvétique)
• CHE - (s) Switzerland (ISO 3166 trigram; from Confédération helvétique)
• CHI - (i) Computer-Human Interaction
• CHiP - (a) California Highway Patrol
• CHL - (s) Chile (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CHN - (s) China (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CHP - (i) California Highway Patrol
• CHS - (i) Combat Health Support

CI-CM

• Ci - (s) Curie
• CI - (s) Chile (NATO country code) - Côte d'Ivoire (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Counter-Intelligence
• CIA - (i) Cairo International Airport - Central Intelligence Agency - Culinary Institute of America
• CIAO - (i) Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office
• CIB - (i) Complete In Box (Internet auction/trading listings)
• CIBC - (i) Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (obsolete)
• CICS - (a) Customer Information Control System (IBM mainframe software; "sicks")
• CID - (i) Criminal Investigation Division - Criminal Investigations Department
• CIÉ - (i) Commission internationale de l'éclairage
• CINC - (p) Commander in Chief
• CIO - (i) Chief information officer - Congress of Industrial Organizations
• CIS - (i) Canadian Interuniversity Sport - Commonwealth of Independent States
• CISB - (i) Complete In Sealed Box (Internet auction/trading listings)
• CISSP - (i) Certified Information Systems Security Professional
• CIV - (s) Côte d'Ivoire (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CIWS - (i) Close-In Weapon System
• CJ - (i) Criminal Justice
• CJC - (i) Canadian Jewish Congress
• CJCS - (i) Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
• CJTF - (i) Combined Joint Task Force
• CK - (s) Cook Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• Cl - (s) Chlorine
• CL - (s) Chile (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Co-ordination Line
• CLEC - (i) Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
• CLEMARS - (a) California Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Radio System
• CLI - (i) Command Line Interface/Interpreter
• CLP - (i) Common [Operating/Operational] Land Picture
• Cm - (s) Curium
• CM - (s) Cameroun (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Cruise Missile
• CMHC - (i) Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
• CML - (p) Chemical
• CMM - (i) Capability Maturity Model
• CMMC - (i) Corps Materiel Management Centre
• CMOS - (i) complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor - Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• CMP - (i) Common [Operating/Operational] Maritime Picture
• CMR - (s) Cameroun (ISO 3166 trigram) - (i) Coaxial Main Rotors (helicopter type)
• CMYK - (i) Cyan Magenta Yellow Key/blacK (colour model)

CN-CO

• CN - (i) Canadian National (railway) - (s) China (ISO 3166 digram) - Comoros (NATO country code)
• CND - (i) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
• CNI - (i) Communications, Navigation and Identification
• CNN - (i) Cable News Network - Cellular Nonlinear Network
• CNR - (i) Canadian National Railway - Combat Net Radio
• c/o - (i) care of (postal code indicating temporary address change)
• Co - (s) Cobalt
• CO - (i) many, including Central Office (phone company); see entry - (s) Colorado (postal symbol) - (i) Commanding Officer
• COA - (i) Course Of Action
• COBOL (p) - COmmon Business-Oriented Language
• COCOM - (p) Combatant Command
• COD - (i) Cash On Delivery - (s) Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISO 3166 trigram)
• COG - (s) Republic of the Congo (ISO 3166 trigram)
• COK - (s) Cook Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• COL - (s) Colombia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• COLA - (a) comp.os.linux.announce - Cost Of Living Adjustment
• COLT - (a) Combat Observation and Lasing Team
• COM - (s) Comoros (ISO 3166 trigram)
• COMECON - (p) Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (economic counterpart of the Warsaw Pact, 1949-1991)
• COMMZ - (p) Communications Zone
• COMSEC - (p) Communications Security
• CONCACAF - (a) Confederation Of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football
• CONMEBOL - (p) Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation)
• CONOPS - (p) Concept of Operations (military)
• CONUS - (p) Continental United States
• COO - (i) Chief Operating Officer
• COP - (i) Common Operating/Operational Picture
• COSCOM - (p) Corps Support Command
• COSER - (p) COoperative SERvice
• COTS - (a) Commercial Off The Shelf

CP-CQ

• CP - (i) Canadian Pacific - Check Point - Command Post
• CPA - (i) Certified Public Accountant
• CPAC - (p) Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel - Conservative Political Action Conference ("see-pack")
• CPF - (i) Calibration Parameter File - Canadian Patrol Frigate
• CPPCC - (i) Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
• CPR - (i) Canadian Pacific Railway - CardioPulmonary Resuscitation
• CPSM - (i) Continuous Phase Shift Modulation
• CPSU - (i) Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• CPU - (i) Central Processing Unit
• CPV - (s) Cape Verde (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CQD - (i) come quick, distress (?)

CR

• Cr - (s) Chrome
• CR - (s) Costa Rica (ISO 3166 digram)
• CRAM - (i) Combined Radiometric Correction Model
• CRC - (i) Central RTI Component - Chemical Rubber Company - Christian Reformed Church - Control and Reporting Centre - (s) Costa Rican Colón - (i) Cyclic Redundancy Check
• CREB - (a) Cyclic AMP-response Element Binding (protein)
• CREEP - (a) Committee to Re-Elect the President
• CRI - (s) Costa Rica (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CRM - (i) Cardiac Rhythm Management - Customer Relationship Management
• CRP - (i) Control and Reporting Post
• CRT - (i) Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy - Cathode Ray Tube - Chinese Remainder Theorem
• CRTC - (i) Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

CS

• Cs - (s) Cesium
• CS - (i) Combat Support - Computer Scientist - (s) Costa Rica (NATO country code) - Serbia and Montenegro (ISO 3166 digram)
• CSA - (i) Canadian Space Agency - Canadian Standards Association - Child Support Agency - Community-supported agriculture - Confederate States of America - Corps Storage Area - Czech Airlines
• C/S/A - (i) CINC, Service, and Agency
• CSAR - (p) Combat Search and Rescue ("seessar")
• CSC - (i) Computer Security Centre
• CSG - (i) Corps Support Group
• CSI - (i) see entry
• CSICOP - (i) Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
• CSIS - (p) Canadian Security Intelligence Service ("seessiss") - (i) Center for Strategic & International Studies
• CSK - (s) Czechoslovakia (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete since 1993)
• CSR - (i) Control Supply Rate
• CSRF - (i) Cross-Site Request Forgery
• CSS - (i) Cascading Style Sheets - Central Security Service - Combat Service Support - Confederate States Ship - Content-Scrambling System - Cross Site Scripting

CT-CZ

• CT - (s) Canton and Enderbury Islands (ISO 3166 digram; merged into KI in 1984) - Central African Republic (NATO country code) - Connecticut (postal symbol)
• CTIL - (i) Critical Tracked Items List
• CTO - (i) Chief Technical Officer
• CTSS - (i) Compatible Time-Sharing System
• Cu - (s) Copper (Latin Cuprum)
• CU - (s) Cuba (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• CUB - (s) Cuba (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CUNY - (a) City University of New York ("CUE-knee")
• CUPE - (a) Canadian Union of Public Employees ("CUE-pee")
• CUPW - (i) Canadian Union of Postal Workers
• CV - (i) many, including curriculum vitae (resumé); see entry
• CVLL - (i) Crypto Variable Logic Label
• CVR - (i) Cockpit Voice Recorder
• CVS - (i) Concurrent Versions System
• CVSD - (i) Continuous Variable Slope Delta (modulation)
• CWC - (i) Chemical Weapons Convention
• CX - (s) Christmas Island (ISO 3166 digram)
• CXR - (s) Christmas Island (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CY - (s) Cyprus (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• CYM - (s) Cayman Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CYP - (s) Cyprus (ISO 3166 trigram)
• CZ - (i) Combat Zone - (s) Czech Republic (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• CZE - (s) Czech Republic (ISO 3166 trigram)

D

• D - (s) Deuterium

DA-DC

• DA - (s) Denmark (NATO country code) - (i) U.S. Department of the Army - District Attorney
• DAFIF - (a) Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File
• DAO - (i) Division Ammunition Officer
• DAQ - (p) Data acquisition
• DART - (a) Disaster Assistance Response Team - Dublin Area Rapid Transit
• DAS - (a) Defensive Aids Suite
• DASL - (i) Datapoint's Advanced Systems Language
• dB - (s) Decibel
• Db - (s) Dubnium
• DB - (i) Data Base - Deutsche Bahn
• d/b/a - (i) doing business as
• DBDO - (i) Desert BDO
• DBE - (i) Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• DBS - (i) Direct Broadcast Services (television)
• DC - (i) da capo - Italian Democrazia Cristiana - direct current - (s) District of Columbia (postal symbol) - (i) Douglas Aircraft Company - Dublin Core - duty cycle
• DCA - (i) Defensive Counter Air
• DCC - (i) Digital Command Control (model railroading)
• DCSOPS - (p) Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and plans

DD-DE

• DD - many, including dear daughter (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards); see entry
• D&D - (i) Dungeons and Dragons
• DDA - (i) digital differential analyzer
• DDD - (i) Data Display Debugger - Digital Digital Digital (CD mastering)
• DDN - (i) U.S. Defense Data Network
• DDoS - (i) Distributed Denial of Service
• DDR - (i) Dance Dance Revolution - Deutsche Demokratische Republik (East Germany, English abbr.: GDR, qv.) - Double Data Rate - (s) East Germany (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete since 1990)
• DDS - (i) Doctor of Dental Surgery
• DDT - (i) Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (insecticide) - Dynamic Debugging Tool (computing)
• DE - (s) Delaware (postal symbol) - Germany (ISO 3166 digram)
• DEA - (i) Drug Enforcement Agency
• DEC - (a/i) Department of Environmental Conservation - Digital Equipment Corporation - Disasters Emergency Committee
• DECT - (a) Digital European Cordless Telephone
• DEFCON - (p) Defence readiness condition
• DEM - (i) Data Exchange Mechanism - Digital Elevation Model
• DEU - (s) Germany (ISO 3166 trigram)

DF-DH

• DFAD - (p) Digital Feature Analysis Data ("dee-fad")
• DFCB - (i) Data Format Control Book
• DFSP - (i) Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans
• DG - (i) Dei gratia (Latin, "by the grace of God") - Director-General
• DGPS - (i) Differential GPS
• DGZ - (i) Desired Ground Zero
• DH - (i) dear husband (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards) - Designated hitter
• DHS - (i) U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• DHSS - (i) U.S. Department of Health and Social Security
• DHY - (s) Dahomey (ISO 3166 trigram; became BEN in 1977)

DI-DL

• DIA - (i) U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
• DICASS - (p) DIrectional Command Activated Sonobuoy System
• DIFAR - (p) DIrectional Frequency Analysis and Recording
• DIMM - (a) Dual In-line Memory Module (computing)
• DINK - (a) Double Income, No Kids
• DIP - (a) Dual In-line Package (electronics)
• DIS - (i) Distributed Interactive Simulation
• DISA - (a) U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency
• DISCOM - (p) Division Support Command
• DISE - (i) Deployable Intelligence Support Element
• DIVAD - (p) Division Air Defence
• DIY - (i) Do It Yourself
• DJ - (s) Djibouti (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• DJI - (s) Djibouti (ISO 3166 trigram)
• DK - (s) Denmark (ISO 3166 digram)
• DLA - (i) U.S. Defense Logistics Agency
• DLIC - (i) Detachment Left-In-Contact
• DLRP - (i) Data Link Reference Point

DM-DN

• DM - (s) Dominica (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Dungeon Master (role-playing games)
• DMA - (i) U.S. Defense Mapping Agency (now NIMA) - Direct Memory Access (computing) - (s) Dominica (ISO 3166 trigram)
• DMD - (i) dentariae medicinae doctor (Latin, "doctor of dental medicine") - Digital Micromirror Device - Digital Multilayer Disk
• DMOC - (i) Distributed Mission Operations Centre
• DMS - (i) U.S. Defense Message System
• DMSO - (p) U.S. Defense Modeling & Simulation Office ("dim-so")
• DMSP - (i) U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program
• DMT - (i) Dimethyltryptamine
• DMV - (i) Department of Motor Vehicles
• DMZ - (i) DeMilitarized Zone
• DNA - (i) DeoxyriboNucleic Acid - Douglas Adams
• DND - (i) Department of National Defence (Canada) - Do Not Disturb
• DNK - (s) Denmark (ISO 3166 trigram)

DO-DQ

• DO - (s) Dominica (NATO country code) - Dominican Republic (ISO 3166 digram)
• DOA - (i) Dead On Arrival - Dead or Alive
• DOB - (i) Date Of Birth
• DOD - (i) U.S. Department of Defense
• DODAF - (a) U.S. Department of Defense Architectural Framework
• DOE - (i/a) U.S. Department of Energy
• DOI - (i) Digital Object Identifier
• DOM - (i) Deo optimo maximo (Latin, "to God, the best and greatest") - (a) Document Object Model - (s) Dominican Republic (ISO 3166 trigram)
• DOS - (a) Denial of Service (DoS, cf. DDoS) - Density of State - Disk Operating System
• DOT - (i) U.S. Department of Transportation
• DP - (i) Decision Point
• 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
• DQ - (i) Dairy Queen

DR-DS

• DR - (i) Dead Reckoning - (s) Dominican Republic (NATO country code)
• DRA - (i) Democratic Republic of America
• DRAM - (p) Dynamic Random Access Memory ("dee-ram") (computing)
• DRC - (i) Democratic Republic of the Congo
• DRDC - (i) Defence Research & Development Canada
• DREA - (i) Defence Research Establishment Atlantic (obsolete)
• DRES - (i) Defence Research Establishment Suffield (obsolete)
• DRET - (i) Defence Research Establishment Toronto (obsolete)
• DREV - (i) Defence Research Establishment Valcartier (obsolete)
• DRL - (i) Daytime Running Lights - Dorman Roberts Ltd.
• DRPR - (p) Drawing Practices
• Ds - (s) Darmstadtium
• DS - (i) Dear son (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards) - Defence Scientist - Direct Support - (s) Dust Storm (METAR Code)
• DSA - (i) Division Support Area
• DSCS - (i) U.S. Defense Satellite Communications System
• DSCSOC - (i) DSCS Operations Center
• DSP - (i) decesit sine prole (Latin, "die without issue") - Defence Support Program
• DSRV - (i) Deaf Sports Recreation Victoria - Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle

DT-DZ

• DTE - (i) Data Terminal Equipment - Down To Earth
• DTED - (p) Digital Terrain Elevation Data ("dee-ted")
• DTG - (i) Date-Time Group
• DTH - (i) Direct To Home (television)
• DTL - (i) diode-transistor logic (electronics)
• DTLOMS - (i) Doctrine, Training, Leader development, Organization, Materiel, and Soldier (mnemonic)
• DTRA - (i) Defence Threat Reduction Agency
• DU - (i) Depleted Uranium - (s) Dust (METAR Code)
• DUI - (i) Data Use Identifier - Data Use Institute - Davis Unified Ignition - Diving Unlimited International - Documento Único de Identidad - Documento Unico de Importación - Driving Under the Influence - Duke University Improv
• DV - (i) Deo volente (Latin, "God willing")
• DVD - (i) Digital Versatile Disk (was Digital Video Disk)
• DVM - (i) Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
• DWI - (i) Dance With Intensity - Danish West Indies - Diffusion-weighted imaging - Direct water injection - Disaster Welfare Inquiry - Drinking Water Inspectorate - Driving While Intoxicated/Impaired
• Dy - (s) Dysprosium
• DY - (s) Dahomey (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete since 1977)
• DZ - (s) Algeria (ISO 3166 digram) - Drizzle (METAR Code) - (i) Drop Zone
• DZA - (s) Algeria (ISO 3166 trigram)

E

• E - (s) East
• E³ - (i) Electronic Entertainment Expo and other meanings, see entry

EA-EC

• EA - (i) Electronic Attack - Engagement Area
• EAC - (i) Echelons Above Corps
• 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
• EC - (s) Ecuador (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code) - (i) Electronic Combat - European Community (see EEC)
• ECB - (i) European Central Bank
• ECCM - (i) Electronic Counter-Counter-Measures
• ECHR - (i) European Convention on Human Rights
• ECJ - (i) European Court of Justice
• ECL - (i) Emitter Coupled Logic (electronics)
• ECM - (i) Electronic Counter-Measures
• ECommHR - (p) European Commission on Human Rights
• ECS - (i) EOSDIS Core System - Extended Chip Set (computing)
• ECSC - (i) European Coal and Steel Community (distant ancestor of the EU)
• ECT - (i) ElectroConvulsive Therapy
• ECtHR - (p) European Court of Human Rights
• ECU - (s) Ecuador (ISO 3166 trigram) - (i) European Currency Unit (ancestor of the euro)

ED-EJ

• EDAC - (a) Error Detection And Correction
• EDC-DAAC - (i) EROS Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center
• EDS - (i) Electronic Data Systems
• EE - (s) Estonia (ISO 3166 digram)
• EEC - (i) European Economic Community (predecessor of the EU)
• eID - electronic ID
• EEG - (i) ElectroEncephaloGram
• EFF - (i) Electronic Frontier Foundation
• e.g. - (i) exampla gratia (Latin, roughly "for the sake of an example", "for example", "for instance")
• EG - (s) Egypt (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• EGBUS - (i) External Genitalia, Bartholin's glands, Urethra & Skene's glands
• EGY - (s) Egypt (ISO 3166 trigram)
• EH - (s) Western Sahara (ISO 3166 digram)
• EHF - (i) Extremely High Frequency
• EI - (s) Ireland (NATO country code; from Eire)
• EIRP - (i) Effective Isotropic Radiated Power

EK-EM

• EK - (s) Equatorial Guinea (NATO country code)
• EKG - (i) Electrocardiogram (from German Elektrokardiogramm)
• EKMS - (i) Electronic Key Management System
• ELF (a/i) Earth Liberation Front - Endangered Language Fund - Eritrean Liberation Front - Executable and Linkable Format - Extremely Low Frequency
• ELINT - (p) Electronic Intelligence
• ELT - (i) Emergency Locator Transmitter
• EM - (i) ElectroMagnetism/ElectroMagnetic
• EMCON - (p) (Electromagnetic) Emissions Control
• EMF - (i) ElectroMotive Force
• EMO - (i) Emergency Measures Organisation
• EMP - (i) ElectroMagnetic Pulse
• EMS - (i) Emergency Medical Services
• EMT - (i) Emergency Medical Technician

EN-ER

• EN - (s) Corps of Engineers - Estonia (NATO country code)
• ENE - (i) East North-East
• ENY - (p) Enemy
• EO - (i) Electro-Optics - Engagement Operations
• EOD - (i) Explosive Ordnance Disposal
• EOS or EOSAT - (p) Earth Observation Satellite
• EOSDIS - (a/i) EOS Data and Information System
• EP - (i) Electronic Protection
• EPCOT - (a) Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow
• EPGS - (i) EOS Polar Ground Sites
• EPIRB - (a/i) Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon
• EPL - (i) English Premier League
• EPW - (i) Earth Penetrator Weapon/Warhead - Enemy Prisoner of War
• Er - (s) Erbium
• ER - (i) Emergency Room - (s) Eritrea (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• ERA - (i) Earned Run Average - Engineering Research Associates - Equal Rights Amendment
• ERCIM - (a/i) European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
• ERI - (s) Eritrea (ISO 3166 trigram)
• EROS - (a) Earth Resources Observation System
• ERP - (i) Engineer Regulating Point
• ERS - (i) Earth Resources Survey
• ERTS - (i) Earth Resources Technology Satellite (became Landsat)

ES-EZ

• Es - (s) Einsteinium
• ES - (s) El Salvador (NATO country code) - (i) Electronic warfare Support - (s) Spain (ISO 3166 digram; from España))
• ESA - (i) European Space Agency
• ESE - (i) East South-East
• ESH - (s) Western Sahara (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ESM - (i) Electronic warfare Support Measures
• ESP - (i) Extra-Sensory Perception - (s) Spain (ISO 3166 trigram)
• EST - (s) Estonia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ESU - (i) Emergency Services Unit
• ET - (s) Ethiopia (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• ETA - (i) Estimated Time of Arrival - Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna
• et al. - (p) et alii/aliae/alia (Latin, "and others")
• ETF - (i) Emergency Task Force (a special police unit, also jocularly said to stand for Extra-Thick Fuzz)
• ETH - (s) Ethiopia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ETLA - (i) Extended TLA
• ETM - (i) Enhanced Thematic Mapper
• et seq. - (p) et sequens/sequentes/sequentia (Latin, "and the following one(s)")
• Eu - (s) Europium
• EU - (i) European Union
• EULA - (i) End-User License Agreement
• EVA - (i) Extra-Vehicular Activity
• EW - (i) Electronic Warfare
• EZ - (i) Extraction Zone

F

• F - (s) Farad - Fluorine

FA-FD

• FA - (i) Field Artillery
• FAA - (i) Federal Aviation Administration
• FAAD - (a) Forward Area Air Defence
• FAADEZ - (i) Forward Area Air Defence Engagement Zone
• FAAQ - (a/i) Frequently Asked and Anticipated Questions (cf. FAQ)
• FAC - (i) Full Aperture Calibrator
• FAD - (i) Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide
• FAH - (i) Federation of American Hospitals - Fine Arts & Humanities - Foreign Affairs Handbook
• FAM - (i) Foreign Affairs Manual
• 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)
• FARP - (a) Forward Arming and Refuelling Point / Forward Area Rearm/refuel Point
• FASEB - (a/i) Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
• FAVS - (a) Future Armoured Vehicle System
• FBI - (i) Federal Bureau of Investigation
• FC - (i) Fire Control - (s) Funnel Cloud (METAR Code)
• FCC - (i) Federal Communications Commission
• FCM - (i) Federation of Canadian Municipalities - Fogarty's Cove Music
• FCS - (i) Future Combat System
• FCZ - (i) Forward Combat Zone
• FDA - (i) Food and Drug Administration (U.S.)
• FDC - (i) Federal Detention Center (U.S.) - Fire Direction Centre
• FDR - (i) Flight Data Recorder - Franklin Delano Roosevelt

FE-FI

• Fe - (s) Iron (Latin Ferrum)
• FEBA - (a) Forward Edge of the Battle Area
• fec. - (p) fecit (Latin, "he made it")
• FEMA - (a/i) U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency
• FEZ - (a/i) Fighter Engagement Zone
• FF - (i) Final Fantasy
• FFA - (i) Free Fire Area
• FFT (i) Fast Fourier Transform - Final Fantasy Tactics
• FG - (s) Fog (METAR Code)
• FI - (s) Finland (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• FID - (i) Foreign Internal Defence
• FIDÉ - (a) Fédération internationale des échecs (French "World Chess Federation")
• FIFA - (a) Fédération internationale de football association (French "International Association Football Federation")
• FIFO - (a) First In First Out
• FIN - (s) Finland (ISO 3166 trigram)
• FIPS - (a) Federal Information Processing Standard
• FIS - (a/i) Fédération internationale de ski (French "International Ski Federation")
• FiST - (p) Fire Support Team
• FITS - (a) Flexible Image Transport System
• FIU - (i) Florida International University

FJ-FR

• FJ - (s) Fiji (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• FJI - (s) Fiji (ISO 3166 trigram)
• FK - (s) Falkland Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• FL - (s) Florida (postal symbol)
• FLAC - (a/i) Free Lossless Audio Codec.
• FLAK - (p) Fliegen Abwehr Kannonen (German for anti aicraft guns)
• FLB - (i) Forward Logistics Base
• FLET - (a/i) Forward Line of Enemy Troops
• FLIR - (i) Forward Looking InfraRed (sensor)
• FLK - (s) Falkland Islands (ISO 3166 trigram) - (i) Funny-Looking Kid (medical diagnosis in-joke)
• FLOT - (a/i) Forward Line of Own Troops
• FLTSAT - (p) Fleet Satellite
• FLTSATCOM - (p) Fleet Satellite Communication System
• Fm - (s) Fermium
• FM - (s) Federated States of Micronesia (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Field Manual - Flight Manager - Frequency Modulation (electronics)
• FMSF - (i) False Memory Syndrome Foundation
• FO - (s) Faroe Islands (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Force Operations (military) - Forward Observer - Frame Optional (military symbology)
• FOM - (a) Federation Object Model
• Fortran - (p) Formula Translator (programming language)
• FP - (i) File Pile
• FPF - (i) Final Protective Fire
• fps - (s) frames per second (motion pictures, television, computer graphics)
• FPS - (i) First person shooter (computer/video games)
• FQ - (s) French Southern and Antarctic Territories (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1979)
• FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain Name
• Fr - (s) Francium
• FR - (s) France (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• FRA - (s) France (ISO 3166 trigram)
• FRAGO - (p) Fragmentary Order (military)
• FRO - (s) Faroe Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)

FS-FZ

• FS - Fire Support (military)
• FSA - (i) Fire Support Area
• FSB - (i) Forward Support Battalion
• FSC - (a) Forest Stewardship Council (ecological pressure group)
• FSCL - (i) Fire Support Co-ordination Line
• FSE - (i) Fire Support Element
• FSF - (i) Free Software Foundation
• FSM - (s) Federated States of Micronesia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• FSS - (i) Fire Support Station
• FST - (i) Finance Support Team - 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 ("footsie")
• FU - (s) Smoke (METAR Code)
• FUBAR - (a) Fucked/Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition
• FUD - (a) Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt (marketing strategy)
• FW - (s) Forward
• F/W - (i) Fixed Wing
• FWF - (i) Fixed Word Format
• FWI - (i) French West Indies
• FWIW - (i) For What It's Worth
• FX - (s) Metropolitan France (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1997)
• FXX - (s) Metropolitan France (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1997)
• FY - (i) Fiscal Year - (s) Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (NATO country code)
• FYDP - (i) Five-Year Defense Plan (U.S.)
• FYI - (i) For Your Information
• FYROM - (a) Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia
• FZDZ - (s) Freezing Drizzle (METAR Code)
• FZFG - (s) Freezing Fog (METAR Code)
• FZRA - (s) Freezing Rain (METAR Code)

G

• G1 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Personnel
• G2 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Intelligence
• G3 - (i) many, including Heckler und Koch G3; see entry - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Operations and Plans
• G4 - (i) Generation Four PowerPC microprocessor - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Logistics
• G5 - (i) Generation Five PowerPC microprocessor - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Public Affairs
• G6 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Information Technology - (i) Group of 6 (France, Germany, United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Italy) (1975)
• G7 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Training - (i) Group of 7 (G6 + Canada) (1976)
• G8 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, Finance - (i) Group of 8 (G7 + Russia) (1998)
• G9 - (s) Assistant Chief-of-Staff, CIMIC
• G10 - (i) Group of 10 (G7 + Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland; numbering 11 in fact)
• G15 - (i) Group of 15 (subset of G77, formed 1989: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe; currently numbers 17)
• G20 - (i) Group of 20 (G8 + Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey + current European Union presiding country) (1999)
• G24 - (i) Group of 24 (subset of G77, formed 1971: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Iran, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Syria, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela)
• G77 - (i) Group of 77 (issued from the United Nations Conference on Commerce and Development, 1964; currently numbers 133)

GA-GI

• Ga - (s) Gallium
• GA - (s) Gabon (ISO 3166 digram) - The Gambia (NATO country code) - Georgia (postal symbol)
• GAAR - (a) General Anti-Avoidance Rule (tax evasion)
• GAB - (s) Gabon (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GABA - (i) Gamma-AminoButyric Acid
• GAD - (a) Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• GB - (s) Gabon (NATO country code) - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (ISO 3166 digram)
• GBE - (i) Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
• GBR - (s) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GC - (s) East Germany (NATO country code; obsolete 1990)
• GCD - (i) see entry
• GCF - (i) Greatest Common Factor
• Gd - (s) Gadolinium
• GD - (s) Grenada (ISO 3166 digram)
• GDP - (i) Gross Domestic Product
• GDR - (i) German Democratic Republic (cf. DDR)
• Ge - (s) Germanium
• GE - (i) General Electric - Genetic Engineering (cf. GM) - (s) Georgia (ISO 3166 digram) - Germany (NATO country code)
• GEL - (s) Gilbert and Ellice Islands (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1977)
• GEO - (a) Geostationary Earth Orbit - (s) Georgia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GEOS - (i) Graphical Environment Operating System
• Gestapo - (p) GEheime STAatsPOlizei (German "secret state police")
• GeV - (s) Gigaelectron-volt
• GEV - (i) Ground Effect Vehicle
• GF - (s) French Guiana (ISO 3166 digram)
• GFE - (i) Good Faith Estimate
• GFCI - (i) Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor (aka GFI)
• GFDL - (i) GNU Free Documentation License
• GFI - (i) Ground Fault Interruptor (aka GFCI)
• GFY - (i) "good for you" or "go fuck yourself", depending on the context (Internet chat)
• GG - (s) Georgia (NATO country code)
• GH - (s) Ghana (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• GHA - (s) Ghana (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GHB - (i) Gamma-HydroxyButyrate
• GI - (i) Galvanised Iron - Gastro-Intestinal - General Issue - (s) Gibraltar (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Government Issue
• GIB - (s) Gibraltar (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GIF - (a) Graphics Interchange Format
• GIG - (a) Global Information Grid
• GIGO - (a) Garbage In Garbage Out (computing)
• GIMP - (a) GNU Image Manipulation Program
• GIN - (s) Guinea (ISO 3166 trigram)

GJ-GU

• GJ - (s) Grenada (NATO country code)
• GL - (i) Graphics Language - (s) Greenland (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Grenade Launcher
• GLAAD - (a) Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
• GLP - (s) Guadeloupe (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GLUT - (a/i) OpenGL Utility Toolkit.
• GM - (s) The Gambia (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) GameMaster (role-playing) - General Motors - Genetically Modified - Guru Meditation (computing)
• GMB - (s) The Gambia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GmbH - (i) Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (German: "Company with limited liability")
• GMFSC - (i) Ground Mobile Forces Satellite Communications
• GMO - (i) Genetically Modified Organism
• GMT - (i) Greenwich Mean Time
• GN - (s) Guinea (ISO 3166 digram)
• GNB - (s) Guinea-Bissau (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GNOME - (a) GNU Network Object Model Environment
• GNP - (i) Gross National Product
• GNQ - (s) Equatorial Guinea (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GNU - (a) GNU's Not Unix
• GOES - (a) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
• GOMER - (a) Get Out of My Emergency Room (derogatory reference to hypochondriac patients)
• GOP - (i) Grand Old Party
• gorp - (a) granola, oats, raisins, peanuts (another name for trail mix)
• GOSP - (a) Gas/Oil Separation Plant
• GOTS - (a) Government Off The Shelf
• GP - (s) Guadeloupe (ISO 3166 digram)
• GPG - (i) GNU Privacy Guard
• GPIB - (i) General-Purpose Instrumentation/Interface Bus
• GPL - (i) General Public License
• GPR - (i) Ground-Penetrating Radar
• GPS - (i) Global Positioning System
• GPU - (i) Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (Russian "State Political Administration") (1922-1934)
• GQ - (s) Equatorial Guinea (ISO 3166 digram)
• GR - (s) Greece (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Hail (METAR Code)
• GRAS - (i) Generally Regarded As Safe (FDA list)
• GRC - (s) Greece (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GRD - (s) Grenada (ISO 3166 trigram)
• grep - (a) [search] Globally for Regular Expression, Print [lines]
• GRL - (s) Greenland (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GS - (i) General Support - (s) South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• GS-R - (i) General Support-Reinforcing
• GSA - (i) U.S. General Services Administration
• GSD - (i) Graphical Situation Display
• GSM - (i) Ground Station Module
• GSOH - (i) Good Sense Of Humour
• GST - (i) Goods and Services Tax (Australia, Canada and other countries)
• GT - (i) Gran Turismo - Grand Touring - (s) Guatemala (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• GTM - (s) Guatemala (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GU - (s) Guam (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• GUF - (s) French Guiana (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GUI - (a) Graphical User Interface ("goo-ey")
• GULCR - (i) Grupo de Usuarios de Linux de Costa Rica
• Gulag - (p) Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei (Russian "Main Directorate of Corrective Labour Camps")
• GUM - (s) Guam (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GUT - (a) Grand Unification Theory
• GUY - (s) Guyana (ISO 3166 trigram)
• GV - (s) Guinea (NATO country code)
• GW - (s) Guinea-Bissau (ISO 3166 digram)
• GY - (s) Guyana (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• GZ - (i) Ground Zero

H

• H - (s) Henry - Hydrogen

HA-HH

• HA - (s) Haiti (NATO country code)
• HAI - (i) Human Awareness Institute
• HALO - (a) High Altitude Low Opening (type of parachute jump)
• HARM - (a) High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile
• HAWK - (a) Homing All the Way Killer (air defence system)
• HAZMAT - (p) Hazardous Materials
• h.c. - (i) honoris causa (Latin, "for the sake of honour")
• HCF - (i) Highest Common Factor
• HCI - (i) Human-Computer Interaction/Interface
• HD - (i) Henry Draper star catalogue
• HDD - (i) Hard Disk Drive - High-Density Disk
• HDRA - (i) Henry Doubleday Research Association
• He - (s) Helium
• HE - (a) High Explosive
• HEAT - (a) High Explosive Anti-Tank (ammunition)
• HEO - (a) Highly Elliptical Orbit
• HEOSS - (a) High Earth Orbit Space Surveillance
• HEPA - (a/i) High-Efficiency Particulate Air (filter)
• HESH - (a) High-Explosive Squash Head (ammunition)
• HETT - (a) Heavy Equipment Transporting Truck / Heavy Equipment Truck Tractor
• Hf - (s) Hafnium
• HF - (i) High Frequency
• HFAC - (p) Human Factors ("aytchfak")
• Hg - (i) Mercury (Latin Hydrargyrum)
• HGF - (i) Human Growth Factor
• HHD - (p) humanitatum doctor (Latin, "doctor of humanities")

HI-HO

• HI - (s) Hawaii (postal symbol)
• HIDACZ - (p) High-Density Airspace Control Zone ("high dak zed/zee")
• HIMAD - (p) High to Medium Altitude Air Defence (see also H/MAD)
• HIMEZ - (a) High Altitude Missile Engagement Zone
• Hird - (a) Hurd of interfaces representing depth (cf. HURD)
• HIV - (i) Human Immunodeficiency Virus
• HJ - (i) hic jacet (Latin, "here lies")
• HK - (s) Hong Kong (ISO 3166 digram)
• HKG - (s) Hong Kong (ISO 3166 trigram)
• HKS - (i) HyperKinetic Syndrome
• HL - (i) Holding Line
• HLA - (i) High Level Architecture - Human Leukocyte Antigen
• HLL - (i) High-Level Language
• HLS - (i) hoc loco situs (Latin, "laid in this place")
• HLVW - (i) Heavy Logistics Vehicle, Wheeled
• HM - (s) Heard and McDonald Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• H/MAD - (p) High/Medium Altitude Air Defence ("aytchmad"; see also HIMAD)
• HMCE - (i) Her Majesty's Customs and Excise
• HMCS - (i) Her Majesty's Canadian Ship
• HMD - (s) Heard and McDonald Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• HMO - (i) Health Management Organization
• HMP - (i) Her Majesty's Prison
• HMS - (i) Helmet-mounted display - Her Majesty's Ship (Royal Navy)
• HMSO - (i) Her Majesty's Stationery Office
• HMV - (i) His Master's Voice
• HN - (s) Honduras (ISO 3166 digram)
• HND - (s) Honduras (ISO 3166 trigram)
• Ho - (s) Holmium
• HO - (s) Honduras (NATO country code)
• HOPI - (a) Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (see Internet2, Abilene Network)
• HORIZON - (a) Hélicoptère d'observation radar et d'investigation sur zone

HP-HZ

• hp - (s) horse power
• HP - (i) Hewlett-Packard
• HPGL or 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)
• HPT - (i) High[er] Payoff Target
• HPV - (i) Human papilloma virus
• HQ - (i) HeadQuarters
• HQDA - (i) HeadQuarters, Department of the Army
• HR - (s) Croatia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Harvard Revised star catalogue - Human Resources
• HRF - (i) High Readiness Forces
• HRH - (i) Her Royal Highness
• HRV - (s) Croatia (ISO 3166 trigram) - (i) High Resolution Visible
• Hs - (s) Hassium
• HSS - (i) Health Service Support - (i) High-Speed Steel
• HST - (i) see entry
• HSV - (i) Herpes Simplex Virus - Hue Saturation Value (colour model)
• HT - (s) Haiti (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) High Temperature - hoc tempore (Latin, "at this time") - hoc titulo (Latin, "under this title")
• HTI - (s) Haiti (ISO 3166 trigram)
• HTML - (i) HyperText Markup Language
• HU - (s) Hungary (ISO 3166 digram; NATO country code)
• HUD - (i/a) Head-Up Display
• HUMINT - (p) Human Intelligence (military parlance)
• HUN - (s) Hungary (ISO 3166 trigram)
• HURD - (a) Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons (cf. Hird)
• HV - (s) Upper Volta (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1984)
• HVO - (s) Upper Volta (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1984)
• HVP - (i) HarborView Properties - High Vacuum Process - Hydrolized Vegetable Protein
• HW - (p) hardware
• Hz - (s) Hertz
• HZ - (s) Haze (METAR Code)

I

• I - (s) Iodine

IA-IC

• IA - (s) Iowa (postal symbol)
• IAAF - (i) International Association of Athletics Federations
• IAAL - (i) I Am A Lawyer
• IACREOT - (i) International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials, and Treasurers
• IAD - (i) Ion Assisted Deposition
• IADS - (i) Integrated Air Defence System
• IAEA - (i) International Atomic Energy Agency
• IAF - {i} Industrial Areas Foundation
• IAFG - (i) Information Assurance Focus Group
• IAI - (i) International African Institute - Israel Aircraft Industries
• IANA - (i) Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
• IANAL - (i) I Am Not A Lawyer
• IAS - (i) Image Assessment System
• IATA - (a/i) International Air Transport Association
• IAW - (i) In Accordance With
• IC - (s) Ice Crystals (METAR Code) - Iceland (NATO country code) - (i) Integrated Circuit
• 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")
• ICNI - (i) Integrated Communication, Navigation, and Identification
• ICO - (i) Intermediate Circular Orbit
• ICP - (i) Inductively Coupled Plasma - Insane Clown Posse
• ICZN - (i) International Code of Zoological Nomenclature

ID-IL

• ID - (s) Idaho (postal symbol) - (p) Identity - (s) Indonesia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Infantry Division
• IDF - (i) Israel Defence Forces
• i.e. - (i) id est (Latin, roughly "that is")
• IE - (i) Indo-European - Internet Explorer - (s) Ireland (ISO 3166 digram)
• IEC - (i) International Electrotechnical Commission
• IED - (i) Improvised Explosive Device
• IEEE - (p) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ("I triple-E")
• IER - (i) Information Exchange Requirement
• IETF - (i) Internet Engineering Task Force
• IEW - (i) Intelligence and Electronic Warfare
• IFF - (i) Identification, Friend or Foe
• IFO - (i) Identified Flying Object
• IFOV - (i) Instantaneous Field of View
• IFR - (i) Instrument Flight Rules
• IFV - (i) Infantry Fighting Vehicle
• IGS - (i) International Ground Station
• IHR - (i) Institute for Historical Review
• IIRC - (i) If I Recall/Remember Correctly
• IIT - (i) Illinois Institute of Technology - Indian Institutes of Technology - Indiana Institute of Technology
• I/ITSEC - (a) Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference ("eye-it-sec")
• IL - (s) Illinois (postal symbol) - Israel (ISO 3166 digram)
• ILC - (i) International Law Commission
• ILO - (i) International Labour Organisation

IM-IQ

• IMF - (i) International Monetary Fund
• IMHO - (i) In My Humble Opinion
• IMO - (i) In My Opinion - International Maritime Organization
• IMPATT diode - (p) IMPact Avalanche Transit Time diode
• IMRI - (i) Industrial Membrane Research Institute - Information Management Research Institute - Institut pour le management de la recherche et de l'innovation - International Market Research Information - Intraoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• IMSA - (i) International Motor Sports Association
• IMT - (i) Integrated Management Tool
• In - (s) Indium
• IN - (s) India (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Indiana (postal symbol) - Infantry
• INC - (i) Indian National Congress - Iraqi National Congress - Iglesia ni Cristo (Philippino Church of Christ) - International Network of Crackers
• INFOSEC - (p) Information Security
• INLA - (i) Irish National Liberation Army
• INMARSAT - (p) International Maritime Satellite organization
• INRI - (a/i) Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum (Latin, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews")
• INST - (p) Information Standards and Technology
• in trans. - (p) in transitu (Latin, "in transit")
• INTSUM - (p) Intelligence Summary
• IO - (s) British Indian Ocean Territory (ISO 3166 digram)
• IOC - (i) Initial Operational Capability - International Olympic Committee
• IP - (i) Initial Point - Intellectual Property - Internet Protocol
• IPB - (i) Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield
• IPN - (i) Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (Institute for National Memory)
• IPO - (i) Initial Public Offering
• IPT - (i) Integrated Product Team
• IPW - (i) Interrogation of Prisoners of War
• iq - (i) idem quod (Latin, "the same as")
• IQ - (i) Intelligence Quotient - (s) Iraq (ISO 3166 digram)

IR-IZ

• Ir - (s) Iridium
• IR - (i) Infrared - Intelligence Requirement (military) - (s) Iran (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• IRA - (i) Individual Retirement Account (legally, Individual Retirement Arrangement) - Irish Republican Army
• IRBM - (i) Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile
• IRC - (i) International Red Cross - International Reply Coupon - Internet Relay Chat
• IRO - (i) International Refugee Organisation
• IRS - (i) U.S. Internal Revenue Service
• IS - (s) Iceland (ISO 3166 digram) - Israel (NATO country code)
• ISA - (i) Individual Savings Account - Industry Standard Architecture - Instruction Set Architecture - International Seabed Authority
• ISAF - (a) International Sailing Federation - International Security Assistance Force
• ISB - (i) Intermediate Staging Base
• ISBN - (i) International standard book number (ISO 2108)
• ISF - (i) Internal Security Force
• ISCII - (a) Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange
• ISM - (p) Interstellar medium
• ISO - (i) In Search Of - International Organization for Standardization
• ISP - (i) International Standardized Profile
• ISSN - (i) International standard serial number (ISO 3297)
• IST - (i) Information System Technology
• IT - (i) Information Technology - (s) Italy (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• ITEC - (a) Information Technology Exposition & Conference
• 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")
• IV - (s) Côte d'Ivoire (NATO country code; from Ivory Coast)
• IW - (i) Information Warfare
• IWW - (i) Industrial Workers of the World
• IZ - (s) Iraq (NATO country code)

J

• J - (s) Joule
• J1 - (s) Joint Personnel Directorate
• J2 - (s) Joint Intelligence Directorate
• J3 - (s) Joint Operations Directorate
• J4 - (s) Joint Logistics Directorate
• J5 - (s) Joint Public Affairs Directorate
• J6 - (s) Joint Information Technology Directorate

JA-JL

• JA - (s) Japan (NATO country code)
• JAG - (a) Judge Advocate General (military law)
• JAL - (p) Japan Airlines
• JAMA - (i) Journal of the American Medical Association
• JATO - (a) Jet Assisted TakeOff
• JCDB - (i) Joint Common Data Base
• JCDS - (i) Joint Chiefs of the Defence Staff
• JCL - (i) Job Control Language
• JCS - (i) Joint Chiefs of Staff
• JD - (i) Julian Day - juris doctor (Latin, "doctor of jurisprudence") - jurum doctor (Latin, "doctor of laws")
• JDL - (i) Jewish Defense League
• Jeb Bush - (a) John Ellis Bush
• Jeb Stuart - (a) James Ewell Brown (Stuart's given names) Stuart
• JEZ - (a) Joint Engagement Zone
• JFACC - (i) Joint Force Air Component Commander
• JFC - (i) Joint Force Commander
• JFK - (i) John Fitzgerald Kennedy or the airport named after him.
• JFLCC - (i) Joint Force Land Component Commander
• JFMCC - (i) Joint Force Maritime Component Commander
• JFSOCC - (i) Joint Force Special Operations Component Commander
• JIB - (a) Joint Information Bureau
• JIC - (a) Joint Intelligence Centre
• JITC - (i) Joint Interoperability Test Command

JM-JZ

• JM - (s) Jamaica (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• JNLP - (i) Java Network Launch Protocol
• JO - (s) Jordan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• JOA - (a/i) Joint Operations Area
• JOPES - (a) Joint Operations Planning and Execution System
• JOTS - (a) Joint Operations Tactical System
• JP - (s) Japan (ISO 3166 digram)
• JPEG - (a) Joint Photographic Experts Group ("djay-peg")
• JPL - (i) Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• JRA - (i) Japanese Red Army - Joint Rear Area
• JSAF - (a) Joint Semi-Automated Forces ("djay-saff")
• JSD - (i) juris scientiae doctor (Latin, "doctor of science of law")
• JSEAD - (i) Joint Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (see SEAD)
• JSOA - (i) Joint Special Operations Area
• JSTARS - (p) Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System ("djay-starz")
• JT - (s) Johnston Atoll (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986)
• JTAGS - (p) Joint Tactical Ground Station ("djay-tagz")
• J-TENS - (a) Joint-Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities
• JTF - (i) Joint Task Force
• JTIDS - (p) Joint Tactical Information Distribution System ("djay-tidz")
• JTMD - (i) Joint Theatre Missile Defence
• JTRS - (a/i) Joint Tactical Radio System ("jitters")
• JW - (i) Jehovah's Witnesses
• JZ - (i) Joint Zone

K

• K - (s) Kelvin - Potassium (Latin Kalium)
• 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")
• KE - (s) Kenya (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• KERA - (a) Kentucky Education Reform Act (of 1990)
• KFC - (i) Kentucky Fried Chicken
• KG - (s) Kyrgyzstan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• KGB - (i) Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Russian "Committee for State Security") (1954-1991)
• KH - (s) Cambodia (ISO 3166 digram)
• KI - (s) Kiribati (ISO 3166 digram)
• KIA - (i) Killed In Action
• KISS - (a) Keep It Simple, Stupid
• KKK - (i) Ku Klux Klan
• KLM - (i) Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Dutch "Royal Dutch Airlines")
• KLOC - (a) Kilo Lines Of Code
• KM - (s) Comoros (ISO 3166 digram)
• KMFDM - (i) Kein mitleid für die mehrheit (German "No pity for the majority" music band)
• KN - (s) Democratic People's Republic of Korea (NATO country code) - Saint Kitts and Nevis (ISO 3166 digram)
• KP - (s) Democratic People's Republic of Korea (ISO 3166 digram)
• Kr - (s) Krypton
• KR - (s) Kiribati (NATO country code) - Republic of Korea (ISO 3166 digram)
• KS - (s) Kansas (postal symbol) - Republic of Korea (NATO country code)
• KU - (s) Kuwait (NATO country code)
• KW - (s) Kuwait (ISO 3166 digram)
• KY - (s) Cayman Islands (ISO 3166 digram) - Kentucky (postal symbol)
• KZ - (s) Kazakhstan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)

L

• L - (i) Label - Lap - Large - Laser (US military aircraft basic mission designation) - Latin - Left - (s) Litre - (i) Low (transmissions)

LA-LC

• La - (s) Lanthanum
• LA - (s) Laos (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Los Angeles - (s) Louisiana (postal symbol)
• LAB - (a) Logistics Assault Base
• LabVIEW - (p) Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench
• LACMA - (a/i) Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• LADW - (i) Local Air Defence Warning
• LAMP - (a) Linux, Apache, MySQL, [Perl, PHP, and/or Python] (a popular web server combination)
• LAN - (a) Local Area Network
• LANL - (i) Los Alamos National Laboratory
• LAR - (i) Light Armoured Reconnaissance - Logistics Assistance Representative
• LARC - (a) Livermore Advanced Research Computer (cf. LLNL)
• LARP - (a) Live-Action Role-Playing
• Laser - (a) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (cf. Maser)
• LATA - (i) Local Access Transport Area
• LAV - (a) Light Armoured Vehicle
• LAX - (s) Los Angeles Airport
• LB - (s) Lebanon (ISO 3166 digram)
• LBJ - (i) Lady Bird Johnson - Lightbulb joke - Little Beagle Johnson (LBJ's dog) - Lyndon Baines Johnson
• LBNL - (i) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• LBS - (i) Location-Based Services
• LBW - (i) Leg Before Wicket
• LC - (i) Line of Contact - (s) Saint Lucia (ISO 3166 digram)
• LC2IEDM or LC²IEDM - (i) Land C2IEDM (q.v.)
• LCC - (i) Land Component Commander
• LCCP - (i) Light Contingency Communications Package
• LCD - (i) Liquid Crystal Display
• LCE - (i) Load Carrying Equipment
• LCM - (i) Least/Lowest Common Multiple
• LCol - (s) Lieutenant-Colonel (Canada, UK)

LD-LI

• LD - (i) Line of Departure
• LDAP - (a/i) Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (pronounced "ell-dap")
• LDS - (i) Latter Day Saint - Liberal Democracy of Slovenia
• LE - (s) Lebanon (NATO country code)
• LEC - (i) Local Exchange Carrier
• LED - (i) Light-Emitting Diode
• LEN - (i) Large Extension Node
• LEO - (a) Low Earth Orbit
• LER - (i) Loss-Exchange Ratio
• LF - (i) Low Frequency
• LG - (s) Latvia (NATO country code)
• LGB - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
• LGBT - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
• LGM - (i) Little Green Men
• LGS - (i) Landsat Ground Station
• LH - (s) Lithuania (NATO country code)
• LHD - (i) litterarum humaniorum doctor (Latin, "doctor of humane letters (humanities)")
• Li - (s) Lithium
• LI - (s) Liberia (NATO country code) - Liechtenstein (ISO 3166 digram)
• LIFO - (a) Last In, First Out

LJ-LO

• LK - (s) Sri Lanka (ISO 3166 digram)
• LL - (i) Land Line (telephone) - Last Log - Late Latin - Left Limit - Lex Luthor (Superman character) - Light Line - Limited Liability - Linked List - Little League
• LLAD - (i) Low Level Air Defence
• LLC - (i) Limited Liability Company
• LLGC - (i) Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (National Library of Wales) - London Lesbian and Gay Centre
• LLLTV - (i) Low-Light Level Television
• LLNL - (i) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• LLP - (i) Limited Liability Partnership
• LLTR - (i) Low-Level Transit Route
• LMAO - (i) Laughing My A** Off (Internet short-hand)
• LMS - (i) London Mathematical Society
• LNG - (i) Liquefied Natural Gas
• LNO - (p) Liaison Officer
• LO - (s) Slovakia (NATO country code)
• LOA - (i) Limit Of Advance
• LOC - (a/i) Level of Operational Capability - Limited Operational Capability - Lines Of Code - Lines Of Communication - see entry
• LoD - (i) Lines of Development (UK)
• LOFAR - (p) Low Frequency Analysis and Recording
• LOGPAC - (p) Logistics Package
• LOL - (i) Laughing Out Loud (Internet short-hand)
• LOMEZ - (p) Low Altitude Missile Engagement Zone
• loq - (p) loquitur (Latin, "(s)he speaks")
• LOS - (i) Line Of Sight
• LOTS - (a) Logistics Over-The-Shore

LP-LZ

• LP - (i) Linkup Point - Listening Post - Long Playing record
• LPC - (i) Linear Predictive Coding
• LPG - (i) Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cf. LNG)
• LPS - (i) Landsat Processing System
• Lr - (s) Lawrencium
• LR - (s) Liberia (ISO 3166 digram)
• LRAD - (p) Long Range Acoustic Device ("ell-rad")
• LRC - (i) Local RTI Component - Logistics Readiness Center
• LRF - (i) Low Readiness Forces
• LRP - (i) Logistics Release Point
• LRPE - (i) Long-Range Planning Element
• LRS - (i) Long Range Surveillance
• LRU - (i) Line-Replaceable Unit
• LS - (i) Landing Support - (s) Lesotho (ISO 3166 digram) - Liechtenstein (NATO country code) - (i) locus sigilli (Latin, "place of the seal")
• LSD - (i) lyserg-saüre-dietylamid (German "lysergic acid diethylamide")
• LSE - (i) Least Squares Estimate/Error - London School of Economics - London Stock Exchange
• LSI - (i) Large-Scale Integration
• LSVW - (i) Light Support Vehicle, Wheeled
• Lt - (s) Lieutenant
• LtC - (s) Lieutenant-Colonel (U.S.)
• LT - (s) Lesotho (NATO country code) - Lithuania (ISO 3166 digram)
• LTC (i) Long-Term Costing
• LTDP - (i) Long-Term Defence Plan
• LTG - (i) Lightning (METAR Code)
• LTI - (i) Linear Time-Invariant
• Lu - (s) Lutecium
• LU - (i) Link-Up Point - (s) Luxembourg (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• LUCA - (a) Last Universal Common Ancestor
• LUG - (i) Linux User Group
• LUT - (i) Local User Terminal
• LV - (i) Las Vegas - (s) Latvia (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Launch Vehicle - Leading Vehicle - (s) Leave - (i) Left Ventricle - Level Valve - Linking Verb
• LVEF - (i) Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction
• LY - (s) Libya (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• LZ - (i) Landing Zone

M

MA-MD

• MA - (s) Madagascar (NATO country code) - Massachusetts (postal symbol) - Morocco (ISO 3166 digram)
• MAA - (i) Mathematical Association of America
• MAC - (a) U.S. Military Airlift Command (1966-1992)
• MAD - (a) Magnetic Anomaly Detector - Mutual Assured Destruction
• MADD - (a) Mothers Against Drunk Driving - Myoadenylate Deaminase Deficiency
• MAGTF - (i) Marine Air-Ground Task Force
• MALD - (a) Miniature Air-Launched Decoy
• MANPADS - (p) Man-Portable Air Defence System
• MAO - (i) MonoAmine Oxidase
• MAQS - (a) Museum of the American Quilter's Society ("max")
• MARFORCC - (p) Marine Force Component Commander
• MAS - (i) Military Agency for Standardization
• Maser - (a) Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
• MASH - (a) Mobile Army Surgical Hospital
• MATS - (a) U.S. Military Air Transport Service (1948-1966)
• MB - (s) Manitoba (postal symbol)
• MBA - (i) Main Battle Area - Masters of Business Administration
• MBE - (i) Member of the Order of the British Empire
• MBTA - (i) Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
• MC - (i) Military Cross (bravery award) - (s) Monaco (ISO 3166 digram)
• MCA - (i) MultiChannel Analyzer
• MCC - (i) Mission Control Centre - Movement Control Centre
• MCD - (i) Minimal Cerebral Dysfunction
• MC&G - (i) Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy
• MCM - (i) Mine Counter-Measures
• MCO - (i) Movement Control Officer
• MCP - (i) Maintenance Collection Point
• MCT - (i) Movement Control Team
• Md - (s) Mendelevium
• MD - (s) Maryland (postal symbol) - (i) Medicinae Doctor (Doctor of Medicine/Medical Doctor) - Mentioned in Dispatches (military) - (s) Moldova (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• MDF - (i) Main Distribution Frame - Medium-Density Fibreboard
• MDMA - (i) MethyleneDioxy-MethylAmphetamine (also known as "Ecstasy")

ME-MH

• ME - (s) Maine (postal symbol) - (i) Memory Effect
• MECC - (a) Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (or Corporation, sources differ)
• MEDEVAC - (p) Medical Evacuation
• MEF - (i) U.S. Marine Expeditionary Force - Minimum Essential Facility - Mission Essential Force
• MEM - (i) Message Exchange Mechanism
• MEO - (a) Medium Earth Orbit
• MEP - (i) Member of the European Parliament
• MET - (p) Meteorological
• METAR - (p) [Meteorological] Aviation Routine weather report
• METOC - (p) Meteorological and Oceanographic
• METT-T - (a) Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops, and Time available (mnemonic)
• MEZ - (i) Missile Engagement Zone
• Mg - (s) Magnesium
• MG - (i) Machine Gun - (s) Madagascar (ISO 3166 digram) - Mongolia (NATO country code) - (i) Morris Garage
• MGM - (i) Metro Goldwyn Mayer
• MH - (s) Marshall Islands (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• MHz - (s) Megahertz

MI-MN

• MI - (s) Malawi (NATO country code) - Michigan (postal symbol) - Midway Islands (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986) - (i) Military Intelligence
• MIA - (i) Missing In Action
• MIB - (i) Men In Black - Mint In Box (Internet auction/trading listings)
• MICOM - (p) Missile Command
• MICV - (i) Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle
• MIDS - (i) Multi-Function Information Distribution System
• MIFG - (s) Shallow Fog (METAR Code)
• MILF - (a) Moro Islamic Liberation Front - Mother I'd Like To Fuck
• MILSATCOM - (p) Military Satellite Communications
• MIMAROPA - (p) Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan (a region in the Philippines)
• MIP - (a) Multilateral Interoperability Programme - Multiple Identity Poster
• MIRV - (a) Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle
• MIS - (a) Management Information Systems - Museum Information System
• MISSI - (a) Multilevel Information System Security Initiative
• MIT - (i) Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey) - methylisothiazoline
• MITS - see entry
• MK - (s) Macedonia (ISO 3166 digram)
• ML - (s) Mali (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Maximum Likelihood
• MLA - (i) Member of Legislative Assembly
• MLB - (i) Major League Baseball
• MLE - (i) Maximum Likelihood Estimation
• MLRS - (i) Multiple-Launch Rocket System
• MLS - (i) Major League Soccer - Multiple Listing Service
• MLVW - (i) Medium Logistics Vehicle, Wheeled
• MM - (s) Myanmar (ISO 3166 digram)
• MMC - (i) Materiel Management Centre
• MMEV - (i) Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle
• MMS - (i) Multimission Modular Spacecraft
• MMU - (i) Manned Manoeuvring Unit
• Mn - (s) Manganese
• MN - (s) Minnesota (postal symbol) - Monaco (NATO country code) - Mongolia (ISO 3166 digram)
• MND - (i) Motor Neurone Disease
• MNT - (p) Molecular nanotechnology

MO-MR

• Mo - (s) Molybdenum
• MO - (s) Macao (ISO 3166 digram) - Missouri (postal symbol) - (i) modus operandi (Latin, "mode of operation") - (s) Morocco (NATO country code)
• MOAB - (a) Massive Ordnance Air Blast (official) - Mother Of All Bombs (slang)
• MOC - (i) Mission Operations Centre
• ModSAF - (p) Modular Semi-Automated Forces (military simulation)
• Moe - (a) Marvel of entertainment
• MOE - (i) Measure Of Effectiveness
• MOF - (a/i) Ministry of Finance
• MOFA - (a/i) Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• MoMA - (a) Museum of Modern Art
• MOOTW - (p) Military Operations Other Than War ("moot-double-you")
• MOP - (i) Measure Of Performance
• MOPE - (a) Most Oppressed People Ever (politics)
• MOPP - (i) Mission-Oriented Protective Posture
• MOS - (i) Military Occupational Specialty - (a) Mit Out Sound / Mit Out Sprache
• MOUT - (i) Military Operations in Urban Terrain
• MOW - (i) Maintenance of way (also MW)
• MP - (i) Magic Points - (s) Mauritius (NATO country code) - (i) Member of Parliament - Military Police - Missouri Pacific - (s) Northern Mariana Islands (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• MPA - (i) Maritime Patrol Aircraft - Master of Public Administration
• MPEG - (a) Motion Pictures (Coding) Experts Group
• MQ - (s) Martinique (ISO 3166 digram)
• MR - (s) Mauritania (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• MRBM - (i) Medium Range Ballistic Missile
• MRI - (i) Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• MRL - (i) Multiple Rocket Launcher
• MRR - (i) Minimum-Risk Route

MS-MZ

• MS - (i) mano sinistra (Latin, "left hand") - (p) manuscript - (i) Master of Science - (p) Microsoft (sometimes M$) - (s) Mississippi (postal symbol) - Montserrat (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Multiple Sclerosis
• M&S - (i) Modelling & Simulation
• MSB - (i) Main Support Battalion
• MSD - (i) Minimum Safe Distance
• MSDB - (i) Multi Source Data Base
• MSE - (i) Multiple Subscriber Element
• MSEC - (p) Message Security Encryption Code ("emm-sec")
• MSG - (i) MonoSodium Glutamate
• MSI - (p) Multispectral imagery
• MSIE - (i) Microsoft Internet Explorer
• MSL - (p) Missile
• MSR - (i) Main Supply Route
• MST - (i) Madison Symmetric Torus - Mountain Standard Time
• MST3K or MST3k - (i) Mystery Science Theater 3000
• Mt - (s) Meitnerium
• MT - (s) Malta (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Montana (postal symbol)
• MTF - (i) Medical Treatment Facility
• MTOE - (p) Modified Table of Organization and Equipment ("emm-toe")
• MTR - (i) Main and Tail Rotor (helicopter type)
• MTS - (i) Michigan Terminal/Timesharing System - Multichannel Television Sound - Multi-Technical Services
• MTV - (i) MainosTeleVisio (Finnish commercial TV company) - Music TeleVision
• MU - (s) Mauritius (ISO 3166 digram) - Oman (NATO country code; from Muscat)
• MV - (s) Maldives (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• MW - (i) Maintenance of way (also MOW) - (s) Malawi (ISO 3166 digram)
• MWR - (i) Morale, Welfare, and Recreation
• MX - (s) Mexico (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• MY - (s) Malaysia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• MYOB - (i) Mind Your Own Business
• MZ - (i) Mach-Zehnder (interferometer) - Magnetic Azimuth - Move, Zig (Zero Wing) - (s) Mozambique (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)

N

• N - (s) Newton - Nitrogen - North
• N3F - (i) National Fantasy Fan Federation

NA-ND

• Na - (s) Sodium
• NA - (s) Namibia (ISO 3166 digram)
• N/A - (i) not available/applicable
• NAACP - (i) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("N double-A CP")
• NAAFI - (a) Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (British)
• NAI - (i) Named Area of Interest
• NAIRU - (a) Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment
• NAMBLA - (a) North American Man-Boy Love Association - North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes
• NaN - (i) Not A Number (computing)
• NARAL - (a) National Abortion Rights Action League
• NAS - (i) Naval Air Station
• 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
• NASED - (a) National Association of State Election Directors [1][2]
• NASS - (a) National Association of Secretaries of State [3]
• NATO - (a) National Association of Theatre Owners - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
• NAVCC - (p) Navy Component Commander
• Nb - (s) Niobium
• NB - (s) New Brunswick (postal symbol) - (i) nota bene (Latin, "mark well")
• NBA - (i) National Basketball Association
• NBC - (i) National Broadcasting Corporation - Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical
• NC - (i) network computer - (s) New Caledonia (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Node Centre - non-consensual - normally closed - (s) North Carolina (postal symbol)
• NCA - (i) National Command Authority
• NC3A or NC³A - (i) NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency
• NCAA - (i) National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NC double A")
• NCES - (i) Network-Centric Enterprise Service
• NCW - (i) Network Centric Warfare
• Nd - (s) Neodymium
• ND - (s) North Dakota (postal symbol)
• NDP - (i) New Democratic Party (Canada)

NE-NK

• Ne - (s) Neon
• NE - (s) Nebraska (postal symbol) - Niger (ISO 3166 digram) - North-East
• NEC - (i) Network-Enabled Capability
• NECTEC - (a) National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Thailand)
• nem con - (p) nemine contradicente (Latin, "no one contradicting")
• nem diss - (i) nemine dissentiente (Latin, "no one dissenting")
• NEO - (i) Near-Earth Object - Non-combatant Evacuation Operations
• NESDIS - (a) National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service
• NESP - (i) NSA/CSS Enterprise Standards Program
• NET - (i) National Educational Television
• NETWARS - (p) Network Warfare Simulation
• NEWS - (a) North, East, West, South
• NF - (s) Norfolk Island (ISO 3166 digram)
• NFA - (i) No-Fire Area
• NFC - (i) National Football Conference
• NFER - (i) National Foundation for Educational Research
• NFL - (i) National Football League - No-Fire Line
• Nfld - (p) Newfoundland
• NG - (i) Natural Gas - Next Generation - (s) Niger (NATO country code) - Nigeria (ISO 3166 digram)
• NGO - (i) Non-Governmental Organization
• NH - (s) New Hampshire (postal symbol) - New Hebrides (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1980) - Vanuatu (NATO country code; from New Hebrides)
• NHANES - (i) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
• NHL - (i) National Hockey League
• NHRA - (i) National Hot Rod Association
• Ni - (s) Nickel
• NI - (s) Nicaragua (ISO 3166 digram) - Nigeria (NATO country code)
• NIAID - (a) National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease
• NIB - (i) New In Box (Internet auction/trading listings)
• NICHD - National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [4]
• NICP - (i) National Inventory Control Point
• NIEHS - (i) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
• NIH - (i) National Institutes of Health - Not Invented Here
• NIMA - (a) National Imagery and Mapping Agency
• NIMBY - (a) Not In My Back Yard
• NiMH - (i) nickel metal hydride (the lower-case "i" stems from the chemical symbol for nickel: Ni)
• NIMH - (i) National Institute of Medical Herbalists - National Institute of Mental Health
• NIN - (i) Nine Inch Nails (band)
• NISCAP - (i) NSA Information System Certification and Accreditation Program
• NIST - (a/i) National Institute of Standards and Technology
• NITFS - (i) National Imagery Transmission Format Standard
• NJ - (s) New Jersey (postal symbol)
• NKVD - (i) Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (Russian "People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs") (1934-1954)

NL-NO

• NL - (s) Netherlands (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Newfoundland and Labrador (postal symbol)
• NLP - (i) Natural Language Processing or Neuro-Linguistic Programming (pseudoscience)
• NM - (s) New Mexico (postal symbol)
• NMCI - (i) Navy Marine Corps Intranet
• NMD - (i) U.S. National Missile Defense
• NMSG - (i) NATO Modelling and Simulation Group
• NNE - (i) North North-East
• NNW - (i) North North-West
• No - (s) Nobelium
• NO - (i) Nitric Oxide - Normally Open - (s) Norway (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• NOAA - (a) U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• NOAF - (i) Norwegian Air Force
• NoMBO - (p) Non-mine, Mine-like Bottom Object
• NORAD - (p) North American Aerospace Defense Command
• 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) Network Operating System - New Old Stock (Internet auction/trading listings)
• NOSA - (i) NATO OSI Security Architecture
• NOTAFLOF - (a) No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds
• NOTAM - (p) Notice to Airmen
• NOW - (a) National Organization for Women

NP-NU

• Np - (s) Neptunium
• NP - (s) Nepal (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• NPC - (i) National Provincial Championship (New Zealand rugby competition) - Non-Player Character (role-playing games)
• NPD - (i) Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (German)
• NPG - (i) Needline/Network Participation Group
• NPOV - (i) Neutral Point Of View
• NPR - (i) National Public Radio
• NQ - (s) Dronning Maud Land (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1983)
• NR - (s) Nauru (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• NRA - (i) National Rifle Association
• NRT - (i) Near Real Time
• NRTA - (i) National Rat Terrier Association - National Retail Tenants Association - National Retired Teachers Association - Northwest Regional Transmission Association
• NS - (s) Nova Scotia (postal symbol) - Suriname (NATO country code)
• NSA - (i) National Security Agency
• NSTAC - (i) National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee
• NT - (s) Iraq-Saudi Arabia Neutral Zone (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1993) - Northwest Territories (postal symbol)
• NTC - (i) National Training Center
• NTDS - (i) Naval Tactical Data Processing System
• NTP - (i) Network Time Protocol
• NTR - (i) Network Time Reference
• NTSB - (i) National Transportation Safety Board
• NTSC - (i) National Television Standards Committee
• NTV - (i) Non-Tactical Vehicle
• NU - (s) Nicaragua (NATO country code) - Niue (ISO 3166 digram) - Nunavut (postal symbol)
• NUCC(C) - (a) Nordic University Computer Club (Conference)
• NUTS - (a) Nuclear Utilization Target Selection

NV-NZ

• NV - (s) Nevada (postal symbol)
• NW - (s) North-West
• NWFZ - (i) Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone
• NWT - (i) North-West Territories
• NY - (s) New York (postal symbol)
• 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 - (s) New Zealand (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• NZC - (i) New Zealand Cricket

O

• O - (i) Oberst - Observer - Obstacle - Octal - Officer - Official - Oh - Operational - Operator - Oprah (magazine) - Oustanding - (s) Oxygen

OA-OO

• OAC - (i) On Approved Credit
• OAS - (i) Organization of American States
• OASIS - (a) Objects and Agents for Information Systems and Simulation - Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
• OAU - (i) Organization for African Unity
• ob - (p) obiit (Latin, "(s)he died")
• OB - (p) Obedience - Obligation - Obligatory - Obsolete - Obstetrics - (i) Ocean Beach (California) - Off Break (cricket) - Order of Battle - Outlet Box (electrical) - (p) Overbought (stock market) - (i) Oversight Board
• OBE - (i) Officer of the Order of the British Empire
• OBJ - (p) Objective (military parlance)
• OBS - (p) Observation/Observer - Obsolete - Obstacle - (i) Off Balance Sheet - Optical Burst Switching (IEEE) - Organic Brain Syndrome - Organization(al) Breakdown Structure
• OBSS - (i) Off Board Sensor Systems - Ordo Byantinus Sancti Sepulchri (Byzantine Order of the Holy Sepulchre) - Orbiter Boom Sensor System (space shuttle) - Origins Billion Star Survey
• OCA - (i) Offensive Counter-Air
• OCOKA - (a) Observation, Cover and concealment, Obstacles, Key terrain, and Avenues of approach (mnemonic)
• OCR - (i) Optical Character Recognition
• OCS - (i) see entry
• ODBC - (i) Open DataBase Connectivity
• OED - (i) Oxford English Dictionary
• OEG - (i) Operation Exposure Guidance
• OEM - (i) Original Equipment Manufacturer
• OH - (s) Ohio (postal symbol)
• OHP - (i) Observatoire de Haute-Provence
• OIF - (i) Operation Iraqi Freedom
• OJ - (i) Orange Juice - O. J. Simpson
• OK - (s) Oklahoma (postal symbol) - (i) oll korrect (facetious alteration of "all correct", 1839)
• OLS - (i) Operational Linescan System
• OM - (s) Oman (ISO 3166 digram)
• OMB - (i) U.S. Office of Management and Budget - Ontario Municipal Board
• OMNCS (i) U.S. Office of the Manager for the National Communications System
• ON - (s) Ontario (postal symbol)
• OO - (i) Object Oriented - Over & Out
• OOP - (i) Object-Oriented Programming - Out Of Print
• OOS - (i) Occupational Overuse Syndrome
• OOTW - (i) Operations Other Than War

OP-OZ

• OP - (i) Observation Point/Post
• OPAC - (a) Online Public Access Catalogue
• op cit - (p) opere citato (Latin, "in the work cited")
• OPCON - (p) Operational control
• OPEC - (a) Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
• OPLAN - (p) Operation plan (also OpPlan)
• OPORD - (p) Operation order
• OPP - (i) Ontario Provincial Police - Operational Planning Process
• OPS - (p) Operations
• OPSEC - (p) Operations security
• OR - (i) Operating Room (surgery) - Operational/Operations Research - (s) Oregon (postal symbol)
• ORF - (i) Operational Readiness Float
• ORR - (i) Office of Refugee Resettlement - (CIA) Office of Research and Reports - Operational Readiness Rate - Operational Readiness Review
• Os - (s) Osmium
• OSD - (i) U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense
• OSI - (i) Office of Strategic Influence - Ontario Swine Improvement - Open Source Initiative - Open Systems Interconnection
• OSS - (i) Organization of Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
• OTB - (p) OneSAF Testbed (the successor to ModSAF)
• OTOH - (i) On The Other Hand
• OVC - (s) Overcast (METAR Code)

P

• P - (s) Phosphorus
• P2P - Peer-to-peer (networking)

PA-PC

• Pa - (s) Pascal - Protactinium
• PA - (s) Panama (ISO 3166 digram) - Paraguay (NATO country code) - Pennsylvania (postal symbol) - (i) Public Affairs
• PAA - (i) Position Area for Artillery
• PABX - (p) Private Automated Branch Exchange (company phone system)
• PAC - (a) Partial Solar Calibrator - Patriot Advanced Capabilities - Political Action Committee
• PAFC - (i) Plymouth Argyle Football Club
• Pakistan - (p) Punjab, Afghan States, Kashmir, Sindh, Baluchistan
• PAL - (a) Phase Alternating Line (TV standard) - (p) Philippine Airlines
• PANS - (a) Pretty Advanced/Awesome Network Services (cf. POTS)
• PAO - (i) Public Affairs Officer
• PARC - (a) Palo Alto Research Center
• PARWIG - (a) Power Augmented Ram Wing In Ground (aeroplane wing shape)
• PASR - (i) Personnel Accounting and Strength Reporting
• PATH - (a) Port Authority Trans-Hudson
• PAWS - (a) Phased Array Warning System - Progressive Animal Welfare Society
• Pb - (s) Lead (Latin Plumbum)
• PBS - (i) Public Broadcasting Service
• PBX - (p) Private branch exchange (company phone system)
• PC - (s) U.S. Pacific Islands Trust Territory (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986) - (i) Personal Computer - Player Character (roleplaying) - Politically Correct / Political Correctness - post cibum (Latin, "after meals")
• PCB - (i) see entry
• PCC - (i) Presidents Conference Committee
• PCCIP - (i) President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection
• 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

• Pd - (s) Palladium
• PD - (i) Point of Departure
• PDA - (i) personal digital assistant - Public display of affection - Push-down automaton
• PDD - (i) Presidential Decision Directive
• PDF - (i) Portable Document Format - Principal Direction of Fire
• PDG - (i) President Director General - Product Development Group
• PDN - (i) Pull-Down Network
• PDQ - (i) pretty damn quick (?)
• PDRY - (i) People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (obsolete since 1990)
• PDU - (i) Protocol Data Unit
• PE - (s) Ice Pellets (METAR Code) - Peru (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - Prince Edward Island (postal code)
• PEBCAC - (a) Problem Exists Between Chair and Computer (IT help desk in-joke)
• PEBKAC - (a) Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair (ditto)
• PEI - (i) Prince Edward Island
• PEO - (a/i) Professional Engineers Ontario
• PET - (a/i) Personal Electronic Transactor - Pierre Elliott Trudeau - Positron Emission Tomography (as in PET scan)
• PETA - (a/i) pentaerythritol triacrylate - People Eating Tasty Animals - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
• PF - (s) French Polynesia (ISO 3166 digram)
• PFLAG - (p) Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays ("pee-flag")
• PFO - (i) Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
• PfP - (i) Partnership for Peace
• PG - (s) Papua New Guinea (ISO 3166 digram)
• PGP - (i) Pretty Good Privacy
• PH - (s) Philippines (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Probability of Hit
• PHP - (i) PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
• PIG - (a) Pipeline Inspection Gauge
• PIM - (a/i) Parameterized Ionospheric Model - Path of Intended Motion - Pediatric Index of Mortality - Personal Information Manager/Management - Presence and Interworking Mobility - Processor-In-Memory - Program Integration Manager - Protocol Independent Multicast
• PIN - (a) Personal Identication Number
• PINF - (i) People In Need Foundation (Czech charitable organization)
• PIPA - (a/i) Program on International Policy Attitudes
• PIR - (i) Priority Intelligence Requirement
• PIREPS - (p) Pilot Reports
• PITA - (a) Pain In The Ass
• PK - (s) Pakistan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Player Kill[er] - Probability of Kill
• PKA - (i) Previously Known As

PL-PR

• PL - (i) Phase Line (Co-ordination Line) - (s) Poland (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• PLB - (i) Personal Locator Beacon
• PLC - (i) Public Limited Company (British)
• PLD - (i) Probable Line of Deployment
• PLGR - (a) Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver ("plugger")
• 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 - (s) Promethium
• PM - (s) Panama (NATO country code) - (i) Perry Mason - Phase Modulation - Post Meridian - Prime Minister - (s) Saint Pierre and Miquelon (ISO 3166 digram)
• PMID - (i) - PubMed Identifier
• PN - (s) Pitcairn Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• PNAC - (i) Project for the New American Century
• PNG - (i) Papua New Guinea - Portable Network Graphic
• PNP - (i) Partido Nuevo Progresista - Plug 'N' Play/Pray - Positive Negative Positive
• Po - (s) Polonium
• PO - (s) Dust Devil (METAR Code) - (i) per os (Latin, "by mouth") - (s) Portugal (NATO country code)
• POD - (i) Port Of Debarkation
• POE - (i) Port Of Embarkation
• POG - (a) Passionfruit, Orange and Guava
• POK - (a/i) Plane Of Knowledge
• POL - (i) Petroleum, Oils and Lubricants
• POP - (a/i) Point of Presence - Post Office Protocol
• Posh - (a) see Dubious entries
• POT - (a/i) Plane Of Tranquility
• POTS - (a) Plain old telephone service (cf. PANS)
• PP - (s) Papua New Guinea (NATO country code) - (i) Passage Point
• PPLI - (i) Precise Participant Location & Identification
• PPM or 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 (ditto)
• PPS (i) post postscriptum - Precise Positioning Service or Precision Positioning System (GPS)
• Pr - (s) Praseodymium
• PR - (s) Puerto Rico (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• PRC - (i) People's Republic of China
• PRFG - (s) Partial Fog (METAR Code)
• PRM - (i) Personnel Readiness Management
• PRN - (i) pro re nata (Latin, "for the emergency", "as needed")

PS-PZ

• PS - (s) Palestine (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Personnel Services - post scriptum (Latin, "written after") - Power Steering - Power Supply - Public School
• PSA - (i) Paralysis Society of America - Pharmaceutical Society of Australia - Pressure-Sensitive Adhesive - Production Services Association - Prostate Specific Antigen - Public Service Announcement - Public Service Association
• PSS - (i) Personnel System Support
• PSV - (i) Philips Sport Vereniging (Dutch for "Philips Sports Union")
• PsyOp - (p) Psychological Operations
• Pt - (s) Platinum
• PT - (s) Portugal (ISO 3166 digram)
• PTA - (i) Parent-Teacher Association
• PTL - (p) Patrol - (i) Primary Target Line
• PTO - (i) Patent & Trademark Office - Please Turn Over
• PTUI - (a/i) Plain-Text User Interface ("pa-too-ey") (cf CLI)
• Pu - (s) Plutonium
• PU - (s) Guinea-Bissau (NATO country code) - United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986)
• Pub - (p) Publication
• PUG - (a/i) PET Users Group
• PUN - (a/i) Pull-Up Network
• PUP - (a/i) Pull-Up Point
• PVC - (i) Permanent Virtual Circuit - polyvinyl chloride - premature ventricular contraction
• PW - (s) Palau (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• 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 - (s) Paraguay (ISO 3166 digram) - Person-Year - (i) Portsmouth yardstick
• PZ - (s) Panama Canal Zone (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1980) - (i) Pickup Zone

Q

• QA - (s) Qatar (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• Qantas - (a) Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services
• QC - (i) Quality Control - (s) Québec (postal symbol) - (i) Queen's Counsel
• QCA - (i) Qualifications and Curriculum Authority - Quality Council of Alberta
• QCD - (p) quantum chromodynamics
• QD - (i) quaque die (Latin, "daily")
• QDOS - (p) Quick and Dirty Operating System ("cue-doss")
• QED - (p) quantum electrodynamics - (i) quid es demonstrata or quod erat demonstrandum (Latin, "that proves it" or "which was to be demonstrated")
• QID - (i) quater in die (Latin, "four times daily")
• QIP - (a) Quadrilateral Interoperability Programme (ancestor of MIP; "quip")
• QS - (i) quantum sufficit (Latin, "as much as suffices")
• QSL - (i) Québec sign language
• QSTAG - (p) Quadripartite Standardization Agreement ("cue-stag")
• Quango - (p) (British Commonwealth) QUasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation
• Quasar - (p) Quasi-stellar radio source
• qv - (i) quod vide (Latin "which see")
• QWGAOR - (i) Quadripartite Working Group on Army Operational Research ("qwig-a-o-r")

R

• R - (i) Reinforcing - Right - (s) Röntgen
• R2I - (i) Resistance to Interrogation
• R3P - (i) Rearm, Refuel, and Resupply Point

RA-RD

• Ra - (s) Radium
• RA - (s) Rain (METAR Code) - (i) Rear Area - Reinforced Alert - Republican Army - Right Ascension - Royal Artillery (UK)
• RAA - (i) Rear Assembly Area
• RAC - (i) Royal Automobile Club (in the United Kingdom, renamed RAC plc in 2002)
• Radar - (p) RAdio Detection And Ranging
• Racon - (p) RAdar beaCON
• RADC - (i) Region Air Defence Commander
• RAF - (i) Royal Air Force - Red Army Faction
• RAM - (a) Random-Access Memory - Rolling Airframe Missile - Royal Air Maroc
• Ramark - (p) RADar MARKer
• RAOC - (i) Rear Area Operation Centre
• RAP - (i) Recognised [Operating/Operational] Air Picture
• Rb - (s) Rubidium
• 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
• RCC - (i) Rescue Co-ordination Centre
• RCCO - (i) Royal Canadian College of Organists
• RCMP - (i) Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• RCS - (i) Revision Control System
• RCT - (i) Randomized Controlled Trial
• RCZ - (i) Rear Combat Zone
• RDDL - (a/i) Resource Directory Description Language ("riddle")

RE-RK

• Re - (s) Rhenium
• RE - (s) Réunion (ISO 3166 digram)
• REACT - (a) Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology
• REAM - (a) Retired Educators Association of Minnesota
• RES - (i) Radiation Exposure Status - (p) Reserve
• Rf - (s) Rutherfordium
• RF - (i) Radio Frequency
• RFA - (i) Restrictive Fire Area
• RFC - (i) Request for Comments - Royal Flying Corps (WWI precursor to RAF)
• RFE - (i) Request for Enhancement
• RFID - (p) Radio Frequency IDentification
• RFL - (i) Restrictive Fire Line
• Rg - (s) Roentgenium
• RG - (i) Republican Guard
• RGB - (i) Red Green Blue (colour model)
• RGBI - (i) Red Green Blue Intensity (ditto)
• Rh - (s) Rhodium
• RH - (s) Southern Rhodesia (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1980)
• RHU - (i) Replacement Holding Unit
• RHWR - (i) Radar Heading and Warning Receiver ("raw" for short)
• RI - (s) Rhode Island (postal symbol)
• RIAA - (i) Recording Industry Association of America
• RIF - (i) Reduction In Force (layoffs)
• RIP - (a/i) Relief In Place - (i) requiesca[n]t in pace (Latin for "may he/she/they rest in peace")
• RISD - (p) Rhode Island School of Design ("riz-dee")
• RISTA - (a) Reconnaissance, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (see also ISTAR)

RL-RP

• RL - (i) Release Line
• RLP - (i) Recognised [Operating/Operational] Land Picture
• RLY - (p) Rally Point
• RMA - (i) Revolution in Military Affairs
• RMP - (i) Recognised [Operating/Operational] Maritime Picture
• RMS - (i) Rate-Monotonic Scheduling - Richard M. Stallman - Root-Mean-Square - Royal Mail Ship (eg RMS Titanic)
• Rn - (s) Radon
• RNA - (i) RiboNucleic Acid
• RNPS - (i) Radio Network Planning System
• RO - (i) Range Only - (s) Romania (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• ROC - (i) Republic of China - Regional Operations Centre
• ROE - (i) Rules Of Engagement
• ROFL(MAO) - (i) Rolling On the Floor Laughing (My A** Off)
• ROM - (a) Read-Only Memory - Refuel On the Move - Royal Ontario Museum
• RO/RO - (a) Roll-On/Roll-Off
• ROV - (i) Remotely Operated Vehicle
• ROZ - (a/i) Restricted Operations Zone
• RP - (s) Philippines (NATO country code) - (i) Release Point - Role-Playing
• RPG - (i) (US-CA) Regional Planning Group - Rocket Projectile Gun - Rocket-Propelled Grenade - Role-Playing Game
• RPL - (i) Reverse Polish Lisp
• rpm - (s) revolutions per minute
• RPM - (i) Red Hat Package Manager
• RPN - (i) reverse Polish notation
• RPR-FOM - (i) Realtime Platform Reference Federation Object Model
• rps - (s) revolutions per second
• RPV - (i) Remotely Piloted Vehicle

RQ-RW

• RQ - (s) Puerto Rico (NATO country code)
• RRN - (i) Recurrence Rate Number
• RRS - (i) Racing Rules of Sailing
• RRSP - (i) Registered Retirement Savings Plan (Canada; roughly equivalent to the IRA in the U.S.)
• RS - (s) Russia (NATO country code)
• R&S - (i) Reconnaissance & Surveillance
• RSA - (i) Regimental Support Area
• RSI - (i) Repetitive Strain Injury
• RSJ - (i) Rolled Steel Joist (construction)
• RSN - (i) Real Soon Now (coined by author Jerry Pournelle)
• RSPCA - (i) Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• RSR - (i) Required Supply Rate
• RSS - (i) Really Simple Syndication
• RSVP - (i) répondez s'il vous plaît (French for "please reply")
• RT - (i) Real Time - (p) Return to duty
• RTF - (i) Rich Text Format
• RTFM - (i) Read the Fucking/Fine Manual
• RTL - (i) see entry
• RTS - (i) see entry
• RTT - (i) Round Trip Timing
• Ru - (s) Ruthenium
• RU - (s) Russia (ISO 3166 digram)
• RUC - (i) Royal Ulster Constabulary
• RV - (i) Recreational Vehicle - Re-entry Vehicle
• RW - (s) Rwanda (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• RWADA - (a) Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance (New York State term used in public education to indicate the size of a school district, i.e its number of students)

S

• S - (s) Siemens - South - Sulfur

SA-SC

• SA - (s) Sand (METAR Code) - Saudi Arabia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) sine anno (Latin, "without year") - Situational Awareness - Sturmabteilung (German for "Storm Detachment", Nazi forerunner and rival of SS, qv.)
• SAAFR - (a/i) Standard use Army Aircraft Flight Route ("safer")
• SABENA - (a) Société anonyme belge d'exploitation de la navigation aérienne (French for "Aerial Navigation Exploitation Belgian Anonymous Society", 1923-2001)
• SAC - (a) Standards Activity Committee (of SISO) - U.S. Strategic Air Command (1946-1992)
• SACEUR - (p) Supreme Allied Commander EURope
• SAD - (a) Seasonal Affective Disorder - Situational Awareness Display
• SAFICT - (a) Software Agents as Facilitators of Interoperability in Collective Training
• SALT - (a) Southern African Large Telescope - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
• SAM - (a) Sequential-Access Memory - Sociedad Aeronáutica de Medellín - Surface-to-Air Missile
• SAML - (a) Security Assertion Markup Language ("sam-ell")
• SAR - (a) Search And Rescue - Special Administrative Region - Synthetic Aperture Radar
• SARP - (a) Search And Rescue Processor
• SARR - (i/a) Search And Rescue Repeater
• SARS - (a) Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
• SAS - (i) Scandinavian Airline Systems - Second Avenue Subway - Situational Awareness System - Special Air Service - Studies, Analysis and Simulation
• 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")
• SAWE - (a) Society of Allied Weight Engineers
• Sb - (s) Antimony (Latin Stibium)
• SB - (s) Solomon Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• SBC - (i) Single-Board Computer
• SBS - (i) Special Boat Service - Special Broadcasting Service
• Sc - (s) Scandium
• SC - (s) Saint Kitts and Nevis (NATO country code; from Saint Christopher) - Seychelles (ISO 3166 digram) - South Carolina (postal symbol)
• SCAP - (a) Supreme Commander Allied Powers (Allied occupation of Japan)
• sccm - (s) Standard cubic centimetre per minute (air flow)
• sccs - (s) Standard cubic centimetre per second (air flow)
• scfh - (s) standard cubic foot per hour (air flow)
• scfm - (s) standard cubic foot per minute (air flow)
• scfs - (s) standard cubic foot per second (air flow)
• SCM - (i) Surface Contamination Module
• SCRAM - (a) Safety Control Rod Axe Man
• SCS - (i) Scan Correlated Shift
• SCSI- (a) Small Computer System Interface ("scuzzy")
• SCT - (s) Scattered Sky (METAR Code)
• Scuba - (a) Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

SD-SH

• SD - (i) Sheriff's department - Smoke/Decontamination- (s) South Dakota (postal symbol) - Sudan (ISO 3166 digram)
• SDC - (i) U.S. Strategic Defense Command
• SDI - (i) see entry
• SDP - (i) Social Democratic Party (European politics)
• SDRAM - (p) Synchronous dynamic random-access memory ("ess-dee-ram")
• Se - (s) Selenium
• SE - (s) Seychelles (NATO country code) - South-East - Sweden (ISO 3166 digram)
• SEAD - (i) Suppression of Enemy Air Defence(s)
• SEAL - (p) SEa-Air-Land
• SEATO - (a) Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
• SEC - (i) Securities and Exchange Commission - (p) Security - Southeastern Conference
• SÉCAM - (a) Séquentiel couleur à mémoire (French for "Colour Sequential with Memory"; TV standard, cf. NTSC, PAL)
• SEDRIS - (a) Synthetic Environment Data Representation and Interchange Specification
• SEN - (i) Small Extension Node
• SEP - (i) Spherical Error Probable
• SETI - (a) Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence
• SF - (i) San Francisco - science fiction - (s) South Africa (NATO country code) - (i) Special Forces
• SFOB - (i) Special Forces Operations Base
• Sg - (s) Seaborgium
• SG - (s) Senegal (NATO country code) - Singapore (ISO 3166 digram) - Snow Grains (METAR Code) - (i) Study Group
• SGML - (i) Standard Generalised Markup Language
• SGS - (s) South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (ISO 3166 trigram) - Svalbard Ground Station (Landsat)
• SH - (s) Saint Helena (ISO 3166 digram)
• SHAPE - (a) Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
• SHF - (i) Super High Frequency
• SHORAD - (p) Short Range Air Defence
• SHORADEZ - (p) SHORAD Engagement Zone
• SHRA - (s) Rain Showers (METAR Code)
• SHSN - (s) Snow Showers (METAR Code)

SI-SK

• Si - (s) Silicon
• SI - (s) Slovenia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Socialist International - Sports Illustrated - Système International
• SIAM - (i) Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• SIF - (i) Selective Identification Feature
• SIG - (p) .signature (UNIX shell/internet standard file name) - (a/i) Special Interest Group
• SIGINT - (p) Signals Intelligence
• SIGMETS - (p) Significant Meteorological Information bulletins
• SIIT - (i) Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies (Canadian university) - Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (Thai university) - Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm
• SIMM - (a) Single In-line Memory Module
• SIMPLE - (a) Satellite Interactive Multimedia Platform for Low-cost Earth stations - Standard Interface for Multiple Platform Link Evaluation (NATO STANAG 5602)
• SIS - (i) Secret Intelligence Service (UK, also known as MI6)
• SISO - (a) Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization
• SIW - (i) Simulation Interoperability Workshop
• SJ - (s) Svalbard (ISO 3166 digram)
• SJA - (i) Staff Judge Advocate (military law)
• SK - (s) Saskatchewan (postal symbol) - Slovakia (ISO 3166 digram)
• SKC - (s) Clear Sky (METAR Code)

SL-SN

• SL - (s) Sierra Leone (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Start Line
• SLA - (i) Service Level Agreement - Symbionese Liberation Army
• SLAN - (i) sine loco, anno, nomine (Latin, "without place, year, or name")
• SLBM - (i) Sea/Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile
• SLC - (i) Scan Line Corrector
• SLOC - (a) Source Lines Of Code
• SLORC - (a) State Law and Order Restoration Council (of Burma)
• slph - (s) Standard litre per hour (air flow)
• slpm - (s) Standard litre per minute (air flow)
• slps - (s) Standard litre per second (air flow)
• SLR - (i) Single-Lens Reflex (camera)
• SLT - (i) Solid Logic Technology (electronics)
• Sm - (s) Samarium
• SM - (s) San Marino (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• SMA - (i) Scan Mirror Assembly
• SMD - (i) Surface Mount Device
• SMDR - (i) Station Message Detail Recording
• SME - (i) Scan Mirror Electronics
• SMG - (i) SubMachine Gun
• SMS - (i) many, including Short Message Service; see entry
• SMU - (i) Southern Methodist University
• Sn - (s) Tin (Latin Stannum)
• SN - (s) Senegal (ISO 3166 digram) - Singapore (NATO country code) - Snow (METAR Code)
• SNAFU - (a) Situation Normal —All Fouled/Fucked Up
• SNCF - (i) Société nationale des chemins de fer français (French for "French Railways National Society")
• SNÉTA - (a) Syndicat national pour l'étude des transports aériens (French for "Aerial transport Study National Syndicate", 1919-1923)
• SNG - (i) Satellite News Gathering (television)
• SNOBOL - (p) StriNg Oriented symBOlic Language
• SNR - (i) SuperNova Remnant - Signal-to-Noise Ratio
• SNRI - (i) Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor
• SNU - (i) Solar Neutrino Unit

SO-SP

• SO - (i) Sheriff's Office - Significant Other - (s) Somalia (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• SOAP - (a) Simple Object Access Protocol
• SOB - (i) Son Of a Bitch
• SOC - (a) Sector Operations Centre
• SOCCSKSARGEN - (p) South Cotabato, Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, General Santos City (a region in the Philippines; pronounced "sock-sar-gen")
• SOE - (i) Secret Of Evermore - Special Operations Executive (WWII British organization) - State Of Emissions (EW)
• SOF - (a/i) Special Operations Force(s) - Status of Forces
• SOI - (i) Signal Operating Instruction
• SOL - (i) S**t Out of Luck
• Sonar - (p) SOund Navigation And Ranging
• SOP - (i) Standing/Standard Operating Procedure
• SOR - (i) State Of Readiness - Statement Of Requirements
• SOV - (i) Single Occupant Vehicle
• SOW - (i) Statement Of Work
• SP - (i) Security Police - Self-Propelled - Shore Patrol - (s) Spain (NATO country code) - (i) Start Point - Strong Point
• SPCO - (i) Single-Pole Change Over
• SPD - (i) Shimano Pedaling Dynamics - Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social Democratic Party of Germany)
• SPDT - (i) Single-Pole Double-Throw
• SPOD - (a/i) Sea Port of Debarkation
• SPOE - (a/i) Sea Port of Embarkation
• SPOT - (a) Satellite pour l'observation de la Terre (French, "Satellite for Earth Observation")
• SPQR - (i) Senatus Populus Que Romanus ("The Senate and the People of Rome")
• sps - (i) sine prole superstite (Latin, "without surviving issue")
• SPS - (i) Standard Positioning Service (GPS)
• SPST - (i) Single-Pole Single-Throw

SR-ST

• Sr - (s) Strontium
• SR - (i) Supply Route - (s) Suriname (ISO 3166 digram)
• SRAM - (p) Static Random Access Memory ("ess-ram")
• SRB - (i) Solid Rocket Booster
• SRBM - (i) Short-Range Ballistic Missile (cf. IRBM, ICBM)
• SRG - (i) SACEUR Rover Group - Special Republican Guard
• SRL - (i) Single Rocket Launcher
• SS - (s) Sand Storm (METAR Code) - (i) Schutzstaffel (Nazi elite Praetorian guard) - U.S. Secret Service - Spanish Ship - Stainless steel - Stockholm Skins - Super Sport - Surface-to-Surface (missile)
• SSDC - (i) U.S. Space and Strategic Defense Command
• SSDD - (i) Same Shit, Different Day - Single-Sided Double-Density (floppy disk)
• SSM - (i) Surface-to-Surface (Guided) Missile
• SSNW - (i) Same Shit, New Wrapping
• SSR - (i) Solid State Recorder
• S/SSM - (i) Surface-to-Subsurface Missile
• SSE - (s) South South-East - (i) Streaming SIMD Extensions
• SSRI - (i) Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor - Social Systems Research Institute
• SST - (i) SuperSonic Transport
• SSTO - (i) Single-Stage To Orbit
• SSW - (s) South South-West
• ST - (s) Saint Lucia (NATO country code) - São Tomé and Príncipe (ISO 3166 digram)
• STA - (i) Scheduled Time of Arrival
• STANAG - (p) NATO Standardization Agreement
• STAGE - (a) Scenario Toolkit And Generation Environment
• stat - (p) statim (Latin, "immediately")
• STENTOR - (p) Satellite de télécommunications pour expérimenter de nouvelles technologies en orbite (French, "Orbital New Technology Experimental Telecommunications Satellite")
• STFU - (i) 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
• STRATCOM - (p) United States Strategic Command
• Stuka - (a) Sturzkampfflugzeug (German WWII dive bomber)

SU-SZ

• SU - (s) Soviet Union (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1992) - Sudan (NATO country code)
• SUB - (i) Student Union Building
• SUNY - (a) State University of New York (usually pronounced "sue-knee")
• SUV - (i) Sport Utility Vehicle
• SV - (s) El Salvador (ISO 3166 digram)
• SVG - (i) Scalable Vector Graphics
• SVO - (i) subject, verb, object
• SW - (s) South-West - Sweden (NATO country code)
• SWALK - (a) Sealed With A Loving Kiss
• SWAPO - (i) South-West Africa People's Organisation
• SWAT - (a) Special Weapons And Tactics
• SWF - (p) Shockwave Flash file ("swiff") - Single White Female
• SWG - (i) Surface Warfare Group - Symbology Working Group
• SWIG - (a) Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator
• SWIR - (a/i) Short Wave InfraRed ("ss-why-are" or "swhirr")
• SWORDS - (a) Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System
• SWOT - (a) Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (mnemonic)
• SY - (s) Syria (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• SZ - (s) Swaziland (ISO 3166 digram) - Switzerland (NATO country code)

T

• T - (s) Tesla - Tritium

TA-TD

• Ta - (s) Tantalum
• TA - (i) Target Acquisition - (s) Tristan da Cunha (ISO 3166 digram)
• TAACOM - (p) U.S. Theater Army Area Command
• TAADCOORD - (p) Theatre Army Air Defence Co-ordinator
• TAC - (a) U.S. Tactical Air Command (1946-1992)
• TacAN - (p) Tactical Air Navigation
• TACC - (i) Tactical Air Control Centre - (USAF) Tanker Airlift Control Center
• TACCSF - (i) U.S. Theater Aerospace Command & Control Simulation Facility
• TACDAR - (p) Tactical Detection And Reporting
• TADIL - (a) Tactical Digital Information Link
• TAI - (i) Target[ed] Area of Interest
• TALES - (a) Technical Advice and Lexicon for Enabling Simulation
• TANJ - (a) There Ain't No Justice
• TANP - (i) Terrain-Aware Network Planner
• TANSTAAFL - (a) There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (coined by author Robert Heinlein)
• TARDIS - (a) Time And Relative Dimensions In Space (from Doctor Who)
• TAROT - (a) Télescope à action rapide pour les objets transitoires (French, "Transient Object Rapid Action Telescope")
• TASM - (i) Tactical Air-to-Surface Missile
• TATT - (i) Tired All The Time (medical diagnosis in-joke)
• Tb - (s) Terbium
• TB - (p) Tuberculosis
• TBA - (i) To Be Announced
• TBC - (i) To Be Confirmed
• TBD - (i) To Be Determined
• TBM - (i) Tactical Ballistic Missile
• Tc - (s) Technetium
• TC - (s) Turks and Caicos (ISO 3166 digram) - United Arab Emirates (NATO country code; from Trucial Coast States)
• TCA - (i) Transformational Communications Architecture - (s) Turks and Caicos (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TCAS - (i) Traffic Collision Avoidance System
• TCD - (s) Chad (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TCG - (i) Trusted Computing Group - Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Gemisi
• TCP - (i) Traffic Control Point - Transmission Control Protocol - Trichlorophenol
• TCU - (i) Texas Christian University
• TCWMS - (i) Tele-Center Workforce Management System
• TD - (s) Chad (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Temporary/Travel Duty - (s) Trinidad and Tobago (NATO country code)
• TDL - (i) Tactical Data Link
• TDMA - (i) Time Division Multiple Access
• TDRS - (i) Tracking Data and Relay Satellite

TE-TL

• Te - (s) Tellurium
• TE - (i) Tactical Exploitation
• TEAL - (a) Tasman Empire Airways Limited
• TEETH - (a) Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy (medical diagnosis in-joke)
• TENCAP - (p) Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities
• TERS - (i) Tactical Event Reporting System
• TES - (i) Tactical Event System
• TF - (s) French Southern Territories (ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Task Force
• TG - (s) Togo (ISO 3166 digram)
• TGIF - (i) Thank God it's Friday
• TGO - (s) Togo (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TGT - (p) Target
• TGV - (i) Tanjong Golden Village - Test Generation with Verification - Train à grande vitesse (French for "High-Speed Train")
• Th - (s) Thorium
• TH - (s) Thailand (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• THA - (s) Thailand (ISO 3166 trigram)
• THAAD (a/i) Theatre High Altitude Area Defence
• Ti - (s) Titanium
• TI - (s) Tajikistan (NATO country code)
• TIBS - (a) Tactical Information Broadcast System
• TID - (i) ter in die (Latin, "three times daily")
• TJ - (s) Tajikistan (ISO 3166 digram)
• TJK - (s) Tajikistan (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TK - (s) Tokelau (ISO 3166 digram)
• TKL - (s) Tokelau (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TKM - (s) Turkmenistan (ISO 3166 trigram)
• Tl - (s) Thallium
• TL - (s) Timor-Leste (ISO 3166 digram)
• TLA - (i) Three-Letter Abbreviation/Acronym
• TLC - (i) Tender Loving Care - The Learning Channel - Thin Layer Chromatography
• TLD - (i) Top-Level Domain
• TLS - (s) Timor-Leste (ISO 3166 trigram)

TM-TS

• Tm - (s) Thulium
• TM - (i) Technical Manual - Theatre Missile - Thematic Mapper - (p) trademark (often written in small superscript type: ^TM or ™) - (i) Turing machine - (s) Turkmenistan (ISO 3166 digram)
• TM! - (p) Tenchi Muyo!
• TMA - (i) Terminal Manoeuvring Area (restricted flying zone)
• TMAP - (a/i) Texas Medication Algorithm Project
• TMD - (i) Theatre Missile Defence
• TMJ - (i) TemporoMandibular Joint (syndrome)
• TMP - (s) East Timor (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 2002) - (p) Temporary
• TMR - (i) Twin Main Rotors (helicopter type)
• TMTOWTDI - (i) There's More Than One Way To Do It (from Perl)
• TN - (s) Tennessee (postal symbol) - Tonga (NATO country code) - Tunisia (ISO 3166 digram)
• TNT - (i) TriNitro Toluene
• TO - (s) Togo (NATO country code) - Tonga (ISO 3166 digram)
• TOA - (i) Total Obligation Authority (accounting)
• TOC - (a/i) Tactical Operations Centre
• TON - (s) Tonga (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TOS - (a) Tape Operating System - Terms Of Service - Tramiel Operating System
• TOT - (i) Time On Target
• TOW - (a) Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (anti-tank missile)
• TP - (s) East Timor (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 2002) - São Tomé and Príncipe (NATO country code)
• TPTB - (i) The Powers That Be (often used to refer to the people responsible for the content of TV series or movies)
• TR - (s) Turkey (ISO 3166 digram)
• TRAIN - (p) Tourist Railway Association, Inc.
• TRANSCOM - (p) U.S. Transportation Command
• TRAP - (p) Tactical Receive equipment and related Applications
• TRD - (i) Towed Radar Decoy
• Trp - (s) Troop
• TRP - (p) Time of Reporting
• TS - (s) Thunderstorm (METAR Code) - Tunisia (NATO country code)
• TSA - (i) Theatre Storage Area - Time Slot Allocation
• TSEC - (i) Transmission Security Encryption Code
• TSN - (i) The Sporting News - The Sports Network
• TSR - (i) many, including Terminate and Stay Resident; see entry

TT-TU

• TT - (s) Trinidad and Tobago (ISO 3166 digram)
• TTO - (s) Trinidad and Tobago (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TTFN - (i) Ta Ta For Now
• TTL - (i) Time 'till live - Time to live - Transistor-transistor logic
• TTP - (i) Trailer Transfer Point
• TTYL - (i) Talk To You Later (Internet slang)
• TU - (i) Technische Universität (German for "Technical University") - Thammasat University (Thailand) - (s) Turkey (NATO country code)
• TUC - (i) Trades Union Congress
• TUG - (a) TeX Users Group
• TUI - (a/i) Text User Interface (cf. CLI)
• TUN - (s) Tunisia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TUNS - (i) Technical University of Nova Scotia
• TUR - (s) Turkey (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TUV - (s) Tuvalu (ISO 3166 trigram)

TV-TZ

• TV - (i) Television - (s) Tuvalu (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• TVA - (i) Tennessee Valley Authority (part of New Deal)
• TW - (s) Republic of China (Taiwan) (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• TWAT - (i) The War Against Terror
• TWN - (s) Republic of China (Taiwan) (ISO 3166 trigram)
• TWS - (i) Track While Scan
• TX - (s) Texas (postal symbol) - Turkmenistan (NATO country code)
• TZ - (s) Tanzania (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• TZA - (s) Tanzania (ISO 3166 trigram)

U

• U - (s) Uranium

UA-UL

• UA - (s) Ukraine (ISO 3166 digram)
• UAB - (i) University of Alabama at Birmingham
• UAR - (i) Uniformly At Random (probability) - United Arab Republic
• UAV - (i) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
• UBC - (i) United Baptist Church - University of British Columbia
• UBS - (i) Unbundled Bitstream Services - United Bank of Switzerland - United Banque Suisse
• UCBSA - (i) United Cricket Board of South Africa
• UCAV - (a/i) Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle
• UÇK - (i) initialism for two Albanian guerilla movements
• UCLA - (i) University of California, Los Angeles
• UCR - (i) University of Costa Rica
• UDDI - (a) Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
• UDT - (i) Underwater Demolition Team
• UEFA - (a) Union of European Football Associations
• UFO - (i) Unidentified Flying Object - United Farmers of Ontario
• UG - (s) Uganda (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• UGA - (s) Uganda (ISO 3166 trigram)
• UGV - (i) Unmanned Ground Vehicle
• UHF - (i) Ultra High Frequency
• UHMW - (i) Ultra-High Molecular Weight
• UID - (i) User ID
• UK - (i) United Kingdom (also (s) NATO country code)
• UKR - (s) Ukraine (ISO 3166 trigram)
• UL - (i) Underwriters Laboratories
• ULF - (i) Ultra Low Frequency

UM-UR

• UM - (s) U.S. Minor Outlying Islands (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
• UMI - (s) U.S. Minor Outlying Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• UMCP - (i) Unit Maintenance Collection Point
• 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 - (p) United Nations Protection Force (in former Yugoslavia)
• UNSM - (i) Union of Nova Scotian Municipalities
• UOG - (a/i) University of Guelph
• UP - (s) Ukraine (NATO country code)
• UPC - (i) Universal Product Code
• UPI - (i) United Press International
• UPN - (i) United Paramount Network
• UPS - (i) Uninterruptible Power Supply - United Parcel Service
• UPU - (i) Universal Postal Union
• UR - (s) Soviet Union (NATO country code, obsolete 1992)
• URI - (i) Uniform Resource Identifier
• URL - (a/i) Uniform Resource Locator (earl)
• URY - (s) Uruguay (ISO 3166 trigram)

US-UT

• US - (i) United States (also (s) NATO country code, ISO 3166 digram)
• USA - (i) United States of America (also (s) ISO 3166 trigram) - 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 - (i) Universal Serial Bus
• USC - (i) United States Code - University of South Carolina - University of Southern California
• USCG - (i) United States Coast Guard
• USCINCSPACE - (p) United States Commander in Chief, Space Command
• USDOE - (i) United States Department of Energy
• USEC - (a) United States Enrichment Corporation
• 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)
• USSPACECOM - (p) United States Space Command
• USSR - (i) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• USTRANSCOM - (p) United States Transportation Command
• UT - (s) Utah (postal symbol)

UU-UZ

• UU - (i) Unitarian Universalism - University of Utah - Unseen University
• UUA - (i) Unitarian Universalist Association
• UUID - Universally Unique Identifier (see also GUID)
• UUV - (i) Unmanned Underwater Vehicle
• UV - (s) Burkina Faso (NATO country code; from Upper Volta) - (i) ultraviolet
• UWT - (i) Under Water Telephone
• UWTG - (p) Under Water Tug
• UXO - (p) Unexploded Ordnance
• UY - (s) Uruguay (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• UZ - (s) Uzbekistan (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• UZB - (s) Uzbekistan (ISO 3166 trigram)

V

• V - (s) Vanadium - Volt

VA-VK

• VA - (s) Virginia (postal symbol) - Vatican City-State (ISO 3166 digram)
• VAT - (i) Value-Added Tax - (s) Vatican City-State (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VB - (i) Victoria Bitter (beer) - Visual Basic
• VC - (s) Saint-Vincent and the Grenadines (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) Victoria Cross
• VCT - (s) Saint-Vincent and the Grenadines (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VD - (s) North Vietnam (ISO 3166 digram, obsolete 1977) - (i) Venereal Disease
• VDR - (s) North Vietnam (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 1977)
• VE - (s) Venezuela (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• VEN - (s) Venezuela (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VfD - (i) Votes for deletion (used in Wikipedia)
• VFR - (i) Visual Flight Rules
• VFW - (i) Veterans of Foreign Wars
• VG - (s) British Virgin Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• VGB - (s) British Virgin Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VHF - (i) Very High Frequency
• VI - (s) American Virgin Islands (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram) - (i) vide infra (Latin, "see below")
• VIP - (i) (see VIP)
• VIR - (s) American Virgin Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VISCII - (p) VIetnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange

VL-VZ

• VLAD - (a/i) Vertical Line Array DIFAR
• VLF - (i) Very Low Frequency
• VLIW - (i) Very Long Instruction Word
• VLSI - (i) Very-large-scale integration
• VM - (s) Vietnam (NATO country code)
• VMF - (i) Variable Message Format
• VN - (s) Vietnam (ISO 3166 digram)
• VNIR - (i) Visible and Near InfraRed
• VNM - (s) Vietnam (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VNS - see entry
• VOC - (i) Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) - Volatile organic compounds
• VON - (i) Victorian Order of Nurses
• VP - (a/i) Vice-President ("veep")
• VR - (i) Virtual Reality
• VS - (i) vide supra (Latin, "see above")
• VSAT - (a) Very Small Aperture Terminal ("vee-satt")
• VSHORAD - (p) Very Short Range Air Defence
• VSO - (i) Voluntary Services Overseas
• V/STOL - (p) Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing ("vee-stoll")
• VT - (s) Vatican City-State (NATO country code) - Vermont (postal symbol)
• VTC - (i) Video Tele-Conference
• VTOL - (i) Vertical Take-Off & Landing
• VU - (s) Vanuatu (ISO 3166 digram)
• VUT - (s) Vanuatu (ISO 3166 trigram)
• VV - (i) Via Voice - Village Voice
• VV&A - (i) Verification, Validation & Accreditation

W

• W - (s) Tungsten (from German Wolfram) - Watt - West
• W3C - (i) World Wide Web Consortium

WA-WN

• WA - (s) Namibia (NATO country code; from West Africa) - Washington State (postal symbol)
• WAAC - (i) Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WWII UK)
• WAAF - (i) Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WWII UK)
• WAC - (i) Women's Auxiliary Corps (WWII Canada)
• WACC - (a) Weighted Average Cost of Capital (accounting)
• WAD - (a) Weapons Alert Designator
• WAK - (s) Wake Island (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 1986)
• WAN - (a) Wide Area Network
• WAsP - (p) Short form of WAAAAP (Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program)
• WASP - (a) White Anglo-Saxon Protestant - Women Airforce Service Pilots
• Wb - (s) Weber
• WB - (i) Warner Brothers
• WC - (i) Water Closet - Winston Churchill - World Cup (sports)
• WCL - (i) World Confederation of Labour
• WCS - (i) Weapon Control Status
• WDC - (i) Western Design Center - World Data Center
• WEZ - (a/i) Weapon Engagement Zone
• WF - (s) Wallis and Futuna Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
• WFC - (i) Women's Forage Corps (WWII UK)
• WFF - (i) Wallops Flight Facility
• WFP - (i) World Food Program
• WFZ - (i) Weapons Free Zone
• WG - (i) Working Group
• WGS 84 - World Geodetic System 1984
• WHO - (a) World Health Organisation
• WI - (s) Western Sahara (NATO country code) - Wisconsin (postal symbol)
• WIA - (i) Wounded In Action
• WIN-T - (i) Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
• WIPO - (a/i) World Intellectual Property Organization
• WK - (s) Wake Island (ISO 3166 digram, obsolete 1986)
• WLB - (i) Women's Land Brigade (WWII Canada)
• WLF - (s) Wallis and Futuna Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
• WMD - (i) Weapon of Mass Destruction
• WMO - (i) World Meteorological Organization
• WNW - (s) West North-West

WO-WZ

• WO - (i) Warrant Officer
• W/O - (p) Without
• WOLOG - (a/i) WithOut Loss Of Generality
• WPE - (i) World Pork Expo
• WRAC - (i) Women's Royal Army Corps (WWII UK)
• WRNS - (i) Women's Royal Naval Service (WWII UK)
• WRS - (i) Worldwide Reference System
• WRT - (i) With Respect To
• WS - (s) Samoa (NATO country code, ISO 3166 digram; from West Samoa)
• WSDL - (i) Web Service Description Language
• WSJ - (i) Wall Street Journal
• WSM - (s) Samoa (ISO 3166 trigram; from West Samoa)
• WSTC - (i) Women Signallers Territorial Corps (WWII UK)
• WSW - (s) West South-West
• 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
• WV - (s) West Virginia (postal symbol)
• WVR - (i) Women's Volunteer Reserve (WWII UK)
• WVSC - (i) Women's Volunteer Service Corps (WWII Canada)
• WW - see entry
• WWE - (i) World Wrestling Entertainment
• WWI - (i) World War I (also: WW1)
• WWII - (i) World War II (also: WW2)
• WWF - (i) World Wildlife Fund - World Wrestling Federation
• WWW - (i) World Wide Web
• WXO - (i) Weather [Executive] Officer
• WY - (s) Wyoming (postal symbol)
• WYSIWYG - (a) What You See Is What You Get (see entry for derived acronyms)
• WZ - (s) Swaziland (NATO country code)

X

• Xe - (s) Xenon
• XBML - (p) eXtensible Battle Management Language
• XCBL - (i) XML Common Business Library
• XHTML - (p) eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language
• XML - (p) eXtensible Markup Language
• XMSF - (p) eXtensible Modelling and Simulation Framework
• XRML - (p) eXtensible Rights Markup Language
• XSL - (p) eXtensible Style Language

Y

• Y - (s) Yttrium
• YAC - (a/i) Youth-Adult Committee
• YAP - (a) Young Aspiring Professional
• Yb - (s) Ytterbium
• YD - (s) People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (ISO 3166 digram, obsolete 1990)
• YE - (s) Yemen (NATO country code; ISO 3166 digram)
• YEM - (s) Yemen (ISO 3166 trigram)
• 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
• YMD - (s) People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 1990)
• YMMV - (i) Your Mileage May Vary
• YO - (s) former Yugoslavia (NATO country code, obsolete 1993)
• YRUU - (i) Young Religious Unitarian Universalists
• YT - (s) Mayotte (ISO 3166 digram) - Yukon Territory (postal symbol)
• YU - (s) Serbia and Montenegro (NATO country code) - (i) York University - (s) former Yugoslavia (ISO 3166 digram, obsolete 2003)
• YUG - (s) former Yugoslavia (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 2003)
• Yuppie - (p) Young Urban Professional + suffix
• YWCA - (i) Young Women's Christian Association

Z

• ZA - (s) South Africa (ISO 3166 digram) - Zambia (NATO country code)
• ZAF - (s) South Africa (ISO 3166 trigram)
• ZAR - (s) Zaire (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 1997)
• ZCU - (i) Zimbabwe Cricket Union
• ZI - (s) Zimbabwe (NATO country code)
• ZIP - (a) Zoning Improvement Plan code
• ZM - (s) Zambia (ISO 3166 digram)
• ZMB - (s) Zambia (ISO 3166 trigram)
• Zn - (s) Zinc
• ZOPFAN - (i) Zone Of Peace, Freedom And Neutrality
• Zr - (s) Zirconium
• ZR - (s) Zaire (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1997)
• ZUI - (a) Zooming User Interface ("zoo-wee")
• ZW - (s) Zimbabwe (ISO 3166 digram)
• ZWE - (s) Zimbabwe (ISO 3166 trigram)

Dubious entries

Words that may not qualify as acronyms, but (humorous) fake etymology claims 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

• Backronym
• List of portmanteaus
• List of U.S. Army acronyms and expressions
• List of government and military acronyms
• List of AAR reporting marks

External links

• Acronym Finder
• Apronyms & Acronyms
• IT Acronyms
• NC3A list of acronyms
• Need an apronym created?
• STANDS4.com
• Acronym Server