Jump to content

Talk:List of acronyms/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2

This is an intermediate list for checking purposes only. This is derived from the list of acronyms with only the initial " - " replaced with " - (a) ".

This list was then merged with the intermediate list of initialisms to create the new list of acronyms and initialisms.

On a personal note I couldn't help noticing there are several entries here that really need cleaning, deleting, moving. But I will leave that to others!

This is a list of acronyms that are pronounceable words. This list does not include initialisms, acronyms whose pronunciation is wholly or partly the names of constituent letters. (see list of initialisms)

Please add your own, in alphabetical order.

  • BAR - (a) Buy American Restrictions
  • BART - (a) Bay Area Rapid Transit
  • BASE - (a) as in BASE jumping - Building, Antenna, Span, Earthform (or Earth)
  • BASIC - (a) Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, acronym was added later, originally it was simply Basic
  • BIOS - (a) basic input/output system
  • BOAT - (a) Byway Open to All Traffic (pronounced as 2 syllables, Bo-At)
  • BOHICA - (a) Bend Over Here It Comes Again
  • BODMAS - (a) Brackets, Of, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction
  • BWARS - (a) Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society
  • CAD - (a) Computer Aided Design
  • CALABARZON - (a) a region in the Philippines: Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon (not an acronym in the strictest sense)
  • CBE - (a) Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  • CENTO - (a) Central Treaty Organization (Baghdad Pact)
  • CERN - (a) Centre Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire
  • CBC - (a) Cipher Block Chaining* COBOL - Common Business-Oriented Language
  • COD - (a) Cash On Delivery
  • COLA - (a) cost of living adjustment - comp.os.linux.announce
  • CREEP - (a) Committee to Re-elect the President
  • DBE - (a) Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  • DIMM - (a) Dual In-line Memory Module (computing)
  • DINK - (a) Double income, no kids
  • DIP - (a) dual in-line package (electronics)
  • DOI - (a) Digital Object Identifier
  • DOS - (a) Density of State / Disk Operating System / Denial of Service
  • EPCOT - (a) Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow
  • FARC - (a) Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
  • FEMA - (a) Federal Emergency Management Agency
  • FIFA - (a) Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Association Football Federation)
  • FIDE - (a) The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (World Chess Foundation)
  • FIFO - (a) First In First Out
  • Fortran - (a) Formula Translator
  • FUBAR - (a) Fucked (or Fouled) Up Beyond All Recognition
  • FUD - (a) Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt (marketing strategy)
  • FSC - (a) Forest Stewardship Council (an ecological pressure group)
  • GBE - (a) Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
  • Gestapo - (a) GEheime STAtsPOlizei ("secret state police")
  • GIGO - (a) Garbage In Garbage Out
  • GIMP - (a) GNU Image Manipulation Program
  • GLAAD - (a) Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
  • GNOME - (a) GNU Network Object Model Environment
  • GNU - (a) GNU's Not Unix
  • GOMER - (a) Get Out of My Emergency Room (derogatory reference to hypochondriac patients)
  • grep - (a) (search) globally for regular expression, print (lines)
  • GUI - (a) Graphical User Interface (pronounced goo-ey)
  • Gulag - (a) Glavnoe Upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh LAGerei
  • HALO - (a) High Altitude Low Opening (type of a parachute jump)
  • IATA - (a) International Air Transport Association
  • ISCII - (a) Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange
  • Interpol - (a/p) International Criminal Police Organization
  • IUPAC - (a) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (pronounced Yoo-Pac)
  • JAG - (a) Judge Advocate General (US military lawyers)
  • JAL - (a) Japan Airlines
  • JATO - (a) Jet Assisted Takeoff Unit
  • Jeb Bush - (a) John Ellis Bush
  • Jeb Stuart - (a) James Ewell Brown (Stuart's given names)
  • JPEG - (a) Joint Photographic Experts Group
  • KBE - (a) Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  • KARNAC - (a) Knowledge Aided Retrieval in Activity Context
  • KISS - (a) Keep it simple stupid
  • LAN - (a) Local Area Network
  • Laser - (a) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
  • LIFO - (a) Last in, first out
  • LUCA - (a) Last Universal Common Ancestor
  • NAAFI - (a) Navy, Army and Air Force Institute (British)
  • NAMBLA - (a) North American Man-Boy Love Association - National Associaton of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes
  • NARAL - (a) National Abortion Rights Action League
  • NASA - (a) National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  • NASCAR - (a) National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing
  • Nasdaq - (a) National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations
  • NATO - (a) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
  • NIMBY - (a) Not In My Back Yard
  • NOAA - (a) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  • NORAD - (a) North American Aerospace Defense Command
  • NORML - (a) National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
  • NOTAFLOF - (a) No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds
  • NOW - (a) National Organization for Women
  • NUCC(C) - (a) Nordic University Computer Club (Conference)
  • NUTS - (a) Nuclear Utilization Target Selection
  • NYRA - (a) National Youth Rights Association; also New York Racing Association (horse racing)
  • OBE - (a) Office of the Order of the British Empire
  • OPAC - (a) Online Public Access Catalogue
  • OPEC - (a) Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
  • Qantas - (a) Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services
  • QDOS - (a) Quick and Dirty Operating System
  • Quango - (a) (British Commonwealth) QUasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation
  • Quasar - (a) Quasi-stellar radio source
  • TANJ - (a) There Ain't No Justice
  • TANSTAAFL - (a) There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch (from Robert A. Heinlein)
  • TEAL - (a) Tasman Empire Airways Limited
  • TEETH - (a) Tried Everything Else, Try Homoeopathy (medical diagnosis in-joke)
  • TOS - (a) Terms of Service; Tape Operating System
  • TUG - (a) TeX Users Group
  • UNESCO - (a) United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
  • UNICEF - (a) United Nations Children's Fund, originally United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund
  • UNIDO - (a) United Nations Industrial Development Organization
  • UNIFEM - (a) United Nations Fund for Women
  • UNPROFOR - (a) United Nations Protection Force
  • URL - (a) Uniform Resource Locator (when pronounced as earl)
  • WAN - (a) Wide Area Network
  • WASP - (a) white anglo-saxon protestant
  • WHO - (a) World Health Organisation
  • WYSIWYG - (a) What You See Is What You Get
  • XrML - (a) eXtensible Rights Markup Language
  • Yippie - (a) Youth International Party + suffix
  • Yuppie - (a) Young Urban Professional + suffix
  • ZIP code - (a) Zoning Improvement Plan

Words that may not be acronyms, but folk etymology says that they are:

  • Fuck - (a) Fornication under consent of the king or for unlawful carnal knowledge
  • Golf - (a) Gentlemen only, ladies forbidden
  • News - (a) North, east, west and south (a mnemonic)
  • Posh - (a) Port out, starboard home
  • Rap - (a) Rhythm and poetry (AFAIK: Rhythmical African Poetry)
  • Tips - (a) To insure prompt service
  • Pom - (a) (Australian English) Prisoner of His Majesty

See also: backronym, list of initialisms, list of US Army acronyms, List of government and military acronyms

de:Abkürzungen