- An abbreviation is a shortening of a word or a phrase.
- An acronym is an abbreviation that forms a word.
-
An
initialism is an abbreviation
that uses the first letter of
each word in the phrase (thus,
some but not all
initialisms are acronyms).
An acronym
(pronounced AK-ruh-nihm,
from Greek acro- in the sense of extreme
or tip and onyma or name) is an
abbreviation of several words in such a way that the
abbreviation itself forms a pronounceable word
Technically, a word
that is formed by combining some parts (usually the
first letters) of some other terms. For example,
modem is the acronym derived from
modulator/demodulator.
In everyday speech, the term is also used to refer
to
initialisms,
which are combinations of letters representing a
longer phrase. For example, CRT is an initialism for
cathode
ray
tube.
The difference is that an acronym is pronounced as
if it were a word rather than just a series of
individual letters.
Newsgroups, chat rooms,
and e-mail have spawned a rich set of acronyms and
initialisms for common phrases.
A few of the more
common ones are listed below.
| Acronym/Initialism | Meaning |
| ASAP | As Soon As Possible |
| BTW | By The Way |
| FYI | For Your Information |
| IMHO | In My Humble Opinion |
| IMO | In My Opinion |
| LOL | Laughing Out Loud |
| TIA | Thanks In Advance |
To search any acronym: http://www.acronymfinder.com/
Find out what any acronym, abbreviation, or initialism stands for |
You can search
or filter terms from the following
categories:
|
Information
Technology (IT) Information technology, Internet/Web, telecommunications, computing & computer science, hardware, software, etc. (over 86,000 definitions) Examples: AJAX, CMM, DHCP, FTP, HTTP, PDA, RSS, SDK, TCP, WWW |
Science & Medicine Popular science, hard science, medicine, nature, engineering, physics, space, astronomy, geology, chemistry, etc. (over 145,000 definitions) Examples: ACL, DNA, HEPA, LASER, MRI, PTFE, SSRI, TIA, TENS, VOC |
|
Military & Government
Local, national and international governments, military, defense, defense industry, weapons systems, etc. (over 154,000 definitions) Examples: DoD, ICBM, ICE, NHS, MoD, NOAA, NSA, OSHA, NZQA |
Organizations & Schools Local, national, and international organizations, schools, colleges, universities, education, non-profits, NGOs, etc. (over 195,000 definitions) Examples: ALA, ANWB, BBB, IEEE, MoMA, NEA, UCLA, UN, WTO |
|
Business & Finance
Business, finance, accounting, marketing, real estate, shipping, companies, stock markets, products, etc. (over 76,000 definitions) Examples: BOE, CEO, EBIDTA, FOB, GAAP, IKEA, IPO, MLS, P&L, TVM |
Slang & Pop Culture Slang, chat, instant messaging, newsgroups, sports, people, pop culture, etc. (over 41,000 definitions) Examples: AFAIK, BRB, IIRC, IMHO, JFK, LOL, MVP, RBI, ROFL |