ABC - Definition and Overview

Look up ABC in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Abbreviation

ABC is an abbreviation with many meanings:

• The Latin alphabet, of which A, B, and C are the first three letters.

• Mass media
  • American Broadcasting Company, a radio and television network in the United States.
  • Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a radio and television network in Australia.
  • Associated British Corporation, a former British television company.
  • Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, a radio and television broadcaster in Japan
  • Audit Bureau of Circulations, organization for North American advertisers and publications

• Government
  • Alcoholic beverage commission and in ABC store, a liquor store run by this commission
  • ABC weapons: Atomic, Biological, and Chemical warfare. This abbreviation has largely been superceded by NBC, where the "N" stands for "nuclear", or WMD.

• Uncategorized businesses
  • Atlanta Bread Company
  • Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast Railroad (also as AB&C)

• Computing
  • The Atanasoff Berry Computer, completed in 1942; also in ABC Computer

• Music
  • ABC is a musical notation language, used especially in ASCII files because of its simplicity.

• Health care
  • in first aid, ABC is a mnemotecnic acronym for airway, breath, circulation, the three vital functions that must be checked and maintained for a casualty during CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation); it was invented by Peter Safar.

• People
  • Archbishop of Canterbury
  • Andrew Browne Cunningham, British admiral
  • American-born Chinese
  • Australian-Born-Chinese.

• Places
  • Atlantic Baptist College, the former name of Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.
  • ABC islands: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.
  • Adventist Book Center

• Biology
  • alien big cat is used in cryptozoology.
  • ATP Binding Cassette, a protein motif characteristic of a family of transporter proteins.
  • Abacavir, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor and potential treatment for AIDS

• Slang
  • Already Been Chewed, for used chewing gum

• Miscellaneous
  • AAR reporting mark ABC)
• Anarchist Black Cross
• Aural brevity code
• Activity based costing

Part of name

ABC is also the part of many proper names without having a specific meaning as an acronym.

• Mass media
  • Diario ABC, a newspaper in Spain.

• Music
  • ABC, the name of an early 1980s new wave music band fronted by Martin Fry.
  • ABC Records is a recording label.
  • ABC is a landmark album by The Jackson Five, including future pop star Michael Jackson.

• Automobile markets
  • ABC (1906 automobile), an American carmarket
  • ABC (1920 automobile), an English carmarket
  • ABC (1922 automobile), a planned (but never built) American carmarket
  • ABC (B), a Belgian carmarket

• Uncategorized businesses
  • ABC Motors

• Computing
  • ABC ALGOL is an extension of Algol 60.
  • ABC 80 was a home computer around 1980.
  • ABC programming language, an imperative programming language developed at CWI (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). It served as inspiration for the Python programming language.

• Mathematics
  • Abc Conjecture, a conjecture in number theory

• Literature
  • The ABC Murders - a novel by Agatha Christie

• Government
  • The ABC Trial - an official secrets trial in the UK