List of initialisms - Definition and Overview

This is a list of acronyms, initialisms and pseudo-blends.

For the purposes of this list, an acronym is an abbreviation that is 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 are significant to determine the order, and that lowercase letters occupy the same ordering position as uppercase (as a tie-breaker, lower case is listed first). For example: Algol appears before ALS. This differs from a strict ASCII ordering.

Contents

0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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Non-alphabetic

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
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 - (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) 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) Apple Display Connector
ADD - (i) Analogue Digital Digital (CD quality) - Attention-Deficit Disorder
ADP - (i) Adenosine DiPhosphate - Automated Data Processing
ADHD - (i) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
ADHS - (i) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome
ADIZ - (a/i) Air Defence Identification Zone
ADL - (i) Anti-Defamation League
ADM - (i) Administrative - Archer Daniels Midland
ADOA - (a/i) Air Defence Operations Area
ADP - (i) Automatic/Automated Data Processing
ADS - (a/i) Astrophysics Data System - Attention Deficit Syndrome
ADT - (i) Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC-3 hours)
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
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
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) Anerican 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
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) Latin, Ab Urbe Condita ("from the founding of the city") / Anno Urbis Conditae ("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
AVO - (i) Apprehended Violence Order
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
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
BIH - (s) Bosnia and Herzegovina (ISO 3166 trigram)
BIOS - (a) Basic Input/Output System
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-BY

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 - (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

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
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
CAS - (i) Close Air Support
CASS - (a) Command Activated Sonobuoy System
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
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 (NATO country code) - Republic of the Congo (ISO 3166 digram)
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
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-CQ

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
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)
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 - (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-CZ

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 - (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 Center
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 - Combat Service Support - Confederate States Ship - Content-Scrambling System - Cross Site Scripting
CT - (s) Canton and Enderbury Islands (ISO 3166 digram; merged into KI in 1984) - Central African Republic (NATO country code) - Connecticut (postal symbol)
CTO - (i) Chief Technical Officer
CTSS - (i) Compatible Time-Sharing System
Cu - (s) Copper
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-DF

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
DBE - (i) Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
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 Comand Control]] (model railroading)
DCSOPS - (p) Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and plans
DD - (i) many, including dear daughter (increasingly prevalent on social mailing lists, blogs, and bulletin boards); see entry - * (s) East Germany (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete since 1990)
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) Digital Elevation Model
DEU - (s) Germany (ISO 3166 trigram)
DFAD - (p) Digital Feature Analysis Data ("dee-fad")
DFCB - (i) Data Format Control Book
DFSP - (i) Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans

DG-DL

DG - (i) Director-General
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)
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-DQ

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) Dental Medical Doctor - 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 - (s) Dominica (NATO country code)
DOA - (i) Dead On Arrival - Dead or Alive
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 - (a) Document Object Model - (s) Dominican Republic (ISO 3166 trigram)
DOS - (a) Denial of Service (DoS, cf. DDoS) - Density of State - Disk Operating System
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) 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
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
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-EJ

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)
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)
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)

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
EM - (i) ElectroMagnetism/ElectroMagnetic
EMCON - (p) (Electromagnetic) Emissions Control
EMF - (i) ElectroMotive Force
EMO - (i) Emergency Measures Organisation
EMP - (i) ElectroMagnetic Pulse
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
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
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
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
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
FEBA - (a) Forward Edge of the Battle Area
FEMA - (a/i) 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)
FID - (i) Foreign Internal Defence
FIDÉ - (a) Fédération internationale des échecs (World Chess Federation)
FIFA - (a) Fédération internationale de football association (International Association Football Federation)
FIFO - (a) First In First Out
FIPS - (a) Federal Information Processing Standard
FIS - (a/i) Fédération internationale de ski (International Ski Federation)
FiST - (p) Fire Support Team
FIU - (i) Florida International University

FL-FR

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 - (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) - (i) Field Manual - Flight Manager - Frequency Modulation (electronics)
FMSF - (i) False Memory Syndrome Foundation
FO - (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)
FQDN - Fully Qualified Domain Name
Fr - (s) Francium
FR - (s) France (NATO country code)
FRAGO - (p) Fragmentary Order (military)

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
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
FY - (i) Fiscal Year
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) Georgia (postal symbol)
GAAR - (a) General Anti-Avoidance Rule (tax evasion)
GABA - (i) Gamma-AminoButyric Acid
GAD - (a) Generalized Anxiety Disorder
GBE - (i) Knight/Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire
GCD - (i) see entry
GCF - (i) Greatest Common Factor
Gd - (s) Gadolinium
GDP - (i) Gross Domestic Product
GDR - (i) German Democratic Republic (cf. DDR)
Ge - (s) Germanium
GE - (i) General Electric - Genetic Engineering (cf. GM)
GEOS - (i) Graphical Environment Operating System
Gestapo - (p) GEheime STAatsPOlizei ("secret state police")
GeV - (s) Gigaelectron-volt
GEV - (i) Ground Effect Vehicle
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)
GHB - (i) Gamma-HydroxyButyrate
GI - (i) Galvanised Iron - Gastro-Intestinal - General Issue - Government Issue
GIF - (a) Graphics Interchange Format
GIG - (a) Global Information Grid
GIGO - (a) Garbage In Garbage Out (computing)
GIMP - (a) GNU Image Manipulation Program

GL-GU

GL - (i) Graphics Language - Grenade Launcher
GLAAD - (a) Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
GLUT - (a/i) OpenGL Utility Toolkit.
GM - (i) GameMaster (role-playing) - General Motors - Genetically Modified - Guru Meditation (computing)
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
GNOME - (a) GNU Network Object Model Environment
GNP - (i) Gross National Product
GNU - (a) GNU's Not Unix
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
GPG - (i) GNU Privacy Guard
GPIB - (i) General-Purpose Instrumentation/Interface Bus
GPL - (i) General Public License
GPS - (i) Global Positioning System
GR - (s) Hail (METAR Code)
GRAS - (i) Generally Regarded As Safe (FDA list)
grep - (a) [search] Globally for Regular Expression, Print [lines]
GS - (i) General Support
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
GU - (s) Guam (postal symbol)
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
GUT - (a) Grand Unification Theory
GZ - (i) Ground Zero

H

H - (s) Henry - Hydrogen

HA-HG

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
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)
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 (element)
HGF - (i) Human Growth Factor

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
HKS - (i) HyperKinetic Syndrome
HL - (i) Holding Line
HLA - (i) High Level Architecture - Human Leukocyte Antigen
HLL - (i) High-Level Language
HLVW - (i) Heavy Logistics Vehicle, Wheeled
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
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
Ho - (s) Holmium
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 - (i) Harvard Revised star catalogue - Human Resources
HRH - (i) Her Royal Highness
HRV - (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)
HTML - (i) HyperText Markup Language
HUD - (i/a) Head-Up Display
HUMINT - (p) Human Intelligence (military parlance)
HURD - (a) Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons (cf. Hird)
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) - (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
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 - Indo-European - Internet Explorer
IEC - (i) International Electrotechnical Commission
IED - (i) Improvised Explosive Device
IEEE - (p) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ("I triple-E")
IETF - (i) Internet Engineering Task Force
IEW - (i) Intelligence and Electronic Warfare
IFF - (i) Identification, Friend or Foe
IFO - (i) Identified Flying Object
IFR - (i) Instrument Flight Rules
IFV - (i) Infantry Fighting Vehicle
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
IL - (s) Illinois (postal symbol)
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
IMT - (i) Integrated Management Tool
In - (s) Indium
IN - (s) Indiana (postal symbol) - Infantry
INC - (i) Indian National Congress - Iraqi National Congress - Iglesia ni Cristo (Philippino Church of Christ) - International Network of Crackers
INLA - (i) Irish National Liberation Army
INRI - (a/i) Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum (Latin, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews")
INST - (p) Information Standards and Technology
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)
IPT - (i) Integrated Product Team
IPW - (i) Interrogation of Prisoners of War
IQ - (i) Intelligence Quotient

IR-IZ

Ir - (s) Iridium
IR - (i) Infrared - Intelligence Requirement (military)
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
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
ISF - (i) Internal Security Force
ISCII - (a) Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange
ISO - (i) In search of - International Organization for Standardization
ISM - (p) Interstellar medium
IT - (i) Information Technology
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"
IW - (i) Information Warfare
IWW - (i) Industrial Workers of the World

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

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
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

JNLP - (i) Java Network Launch Protocol
JOA - (a/i) Joint Operations Area
JOPES - (a) Joint Operations Planning and Execution System
JOTS - (a) Joint Operations Tactical System
JPEG - (a) Joint Photographic Experts Group ("djay-peg")
JPL - (i) Jet Propulsion Laboratory
JRA - (i) Japanese Red Army - Joint Rear Area
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")
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 - (i) Joint Tactical Radio System
JW - (i) Jehovah's Witnesses
JZ - (i) Joint Zone

K

K - (s) Kelvin - Potassium
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")
KERA - (a) Kentucky Education Reform Act (of 1990)
KFC - (i) Kentucky Fried Chicken
KGB - (i) Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti ("Committee for State Security" Soviet Intelligence Service)
KIA - (i) Killed In Action
KISS - (a) Keep It Simple, Stupid
KKK - (i) Ku Klux Klan
KLM - (i) Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines)
KLOC - (a) Kilo Lines Of Code
KMFDM - (i) Kein mitleid für die mehrheit ("no pity for the majority" music band)
Kr - (s) Krypton
KS - (s) Kansas (postal symbol)
KY - (s) Kentucky (postal symbol)

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 - (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
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
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
LC2IEDM or LC²IEDM - (i) Land C2IEDM (q.v.)
LCC - (i) Land Component Commander
LCCP - (i) Light Contingency Communications Package
LCD - (i) Liquid Crystal Display
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
LEC - (i) Local Exchange Carrier
LED - (i) Light-Emitting Diode
LEN - (i) Large Extension Node
LER - (i) Loss-Exchange Ratio
LF - (i) Low Frequency
LGB - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
LGBT - (i) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
LGM - (i) Little Green Men
LGS - (i) Landsat Ground Station
Li - (s) Lithium
LIFO - (a) Last In, First Out

LL-LO

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
LOA - (i) Limit Of Advance
LOC - (a/i) Level of Operational Capability - Limited Operational Capability - Lines Of Code - Lines Of Communication - see entry
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
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
LRAD - (p) Long Range Acoustic Device ("ell-rad")
LRC - (i) Local RTI Component - Logistics Readiness Center
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
LSD - (i) German, lyserg-saüre-dietylamid (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.)
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)
LUCA - (a) Last Universal Common Ancestor
LUG - (i) Linux User Group
LV - (i) Las Vegas - Launch Vehicle - Leading Vehicle - (s) Leave - (i) Left Ventricle - Level Valve - Linking Verb
LVEF - (i) Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction
LZ - (i) Landing Zone

M

MA-MD

MA - (s) Massachusetts (postal symbol)
MAA - (i) Mathematical Association of America
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
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)
MCA - (i) MultiChannel Analyzer
MCC - (i) 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)
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
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 - Morris Garage
MGM - (i) Metro Goldwyn Mayer
MH - (s) Marshall Islands (postal symbol)
MHz - (s) Megahertz

MI-MN

MI - (s) Michigan (postal symbol) - (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 (http://wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Transwiki:Mother_I%27d_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
MIT - (i) Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Milli Istihbarad Teskilati (Intelligence service of Turkey) - methylisothiazoline
MITS - see entry
ML - (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
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)
MND - (i) Motor Neurone Disease
MNT - (p) Molecular nanotechnology

MO-MR

Mo - (s) Molybdenum
MO - (s) Missouri (postal symbol) - (i) modus operandi (Latin, "mode of operation")
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)
MOS - (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 - Member of Parliament - Military Police - Missouri Pacific - (s) Northern Mariana Islands (postal symbol)
MPA - (i) Maritime Patrol Aircraft - Master of Public Administration
MPEG - (a) Motion Pictures (Coding) Experts Group
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) Master of Science - Microsoft (sometimes M$) - (s) Mississippi (postal symbol) - (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) 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
MW - (i) Maintenance of way (also MOW)
MWR - (i) Morale, Welfare, and Recreation
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
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] (http://www.nased.org)[2] (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=National_Association_of_State_Election_Directors_(NASED))
NASS - (a) National Association of Secretaries of State [3] (http://nass.org)
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 - 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
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) - North-East
NECTEC - (a) National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Thailand)
NEO - (i) Near-Earth Object - Non-combatant Evacuation Operations
NET - (i) National Educational Television
NETWARS - (p) Network Warfare Simulation
NEWS - (a) North, East, West, South
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
NGO - (i) Non-Governmental Organization
NH - (s) New Hampshire (postal symbol)
NHANES - (i) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
NHL - (i) National Hockey League
Ni - (s) Nickel
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] (http://www.nichd.nih.gov)
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 chemical symbol for nickel is Ni, hence the lower-case "i")
NIMH - (i) National Institute of Medical Herbalists - National Institute of Mental Health
NIN - (i) Nine Inch Nails (band)
NIST - (a/i) National Institute of Standards and Technology
NITFS - (i) National Imagery Transmission Format Standard
NJ - (s) New Jersey (postal symbol)

NL-NO

NL - (s) Netherlands - 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
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) 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)
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)
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
NR - (s) Nauru (NATO country code)
NRA - (i) National Rifle Association
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
NT - (s) Northwest Territories (postal symbol)
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) 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
OEM - (i) Original Equipment Manufacturer
OH - (s) Ohio (postal symbol)
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
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
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 interconnect
OSS - (i) Organization of Strategic Services (forerunner of CIA)
OTB - (p) OneSAF Testbed (OneSAF is the successor to ModSAF)
OTOH - (i) On The Other Hand
OVC - (s) Overcast (METAR Code)

P

P - (s) Phosphorus
P2P - Peer to Peer (file sharing)

PA-PC

Pa - (s) Pascal - Protactinium
PA - (s) 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
PBS - (i) Public Broadcasting Service
PBX - (p) Private branch exchange (company phone system)
PC - (i) Personal Computer - Player Character (roleplaying) - Politically Correct / Political Correctness
PCB - (i) see entry
PCC - (i) Presidents Conference Committee
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
PDF - (i) Portable Document Format - Principal Direction of Fire
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
PFLAG - (p) Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays ("pee-flag")
PFO - (i) Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
PGP - (i) Pretty Good Privacy
PH - (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)
PLC - (i) Public Limited Company (British)
PLD - (i) Probable Line of Deployment
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
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) - 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) Precision Positioning System
Pr - (s) Praseodymium
PR - (s) Puerto Rico (postal symbol)
PRC - (i) People's Republic of China
PRFG - (s) Partial Fog (METAR Code)
PRM - (i) Personnel Readiness Management

PS-PZ

PS - (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
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
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)
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) Person-Year - (i) Portsmouth yardstick
PZ - (i) Pickup Zone

Q

Qantas - (a) Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services
QC - (i) Queen's Counsel - quality control - (s) Québec (postal symbol)
QCA - (i) Qualifications and Curriculum Authority - Quality Council of Alberta
QCD - (i) quantum chromodynamics
QDOS - (p) Quick and Dirty Operating System ("cue-doss")
QED - (i) quantum electrodynamics - Latin "quid es demonstrata" (that proves it)
QSL - (i) Québec sign language
QSTAG - (p) Quadripartite Standardization Agreement ("cue-stag")
Quango - (a) (British Commonwealth) QUasi Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation
Quasar - (a) Quasi-stellar radio source
qv - (i) Latin "quod vide" (which see)

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
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
REACT - (a) Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology
REAM - (a) Retired Educators Association of Minnesota
RES - (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
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
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 - (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

RR-RW

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 - (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
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) - (i) 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)
SACEUR - (p) Supreme Allied Commander EURope
SAD - (a) Seasonal Affective Disorder - Situational Awareness Display
SALT - (a) Southern African Large Telescope - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
SAM - (a) Sequential-Access Memory - Sociedad Aeronáutica de Medellín - Surface-to-Air Missile
SAR - (a) Search And Rescue - Special Administrative Region - Synthetic Aperture Radar
SARS - (a) Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
SAS - (i) Scandinavian Airline Systems - Second Avenue Subway - Situational Awareness System - Special Air Service
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
SBC - (i) Single-Board Computer
SBS - (i) Special Boat Service - Special Broadcasting Service
Sc - (s) Scandium
SC - (s) 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)
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) South-East
SEAD - (i) Suppression of Enemy Air Defence(s)
SEAL - (a) 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 - Special Forces
SFOB - (i) Special Forces Operations Base
Sg - (s) Seaborgium
SG - (s) Snow Grains (METAR Code)
SGML - (i) Standard Generalised Markup Language
SGS - (i) Svalbard Ground Station (Landsat)
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 - (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
SJA - (i) Staff Judge Advocate (military law)
SK - (s) Saskatchewan (postal symbol)
SKC - (s) Clear Sky (METAR Code)

SL-SN

SL - (i) Start Line
SLA - (i) Service Level Agreement - Symbionese Liberation Army
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
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
SN - (s) 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)
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
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
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 - 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")
SPST - (i) Single-Pole Single-Throw

SR-ST

Sr - (s) Strontium
SR - (i) Supply Route
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
STA - (i) Scheduled Time of Arrival
STANAG - (p) NATO Standardization Agreement
STAGE - (a) Scenario Toolkit And Generation Environment
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
Stuka - (a) Sturzkampfflugzeug (German WWII dive bomber)

SU-SW

SUB - (i) Student Union Building
SUNY - (a) State University of New York (usually pronounced "sue-knee")
SUV - (i) Sport Utility Vehicle
SVG - (i) Scalable Vector Graphics
SVO - (i) subject, verb, object
SW - (s) South-West
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)

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
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)
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
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
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
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; also 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-VZ

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)
VIP - (i) (see VIP)
VIR - (s) American Virgin Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
VISCII - (p) VIetnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange
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
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
VT - (s) Vatican City-State (NATO country code) - Vermont (postal symbol)
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 - 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 (http://www.wasp.dk/))
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)
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
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 be acronyms, but (humorous) fake etymology says 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

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External links

Acronym Finder (http://www.acronymfinder.com)
Apronyms & Acronyms (http://acronyms.co.nz)
IT Acronyms (http://www.computer-tips-und-tricks.de/vera-index.html)
NC3A list of acronyms (http://nc3ta.nc3a.nato.int/website/book.asp?cl=no&page=acronyms/index.html&menuid=13)
Need an apronym created? (http://www.co.nz/cgi/forums/main.cgi?id=acronyms&user=&session=)
STANDS4.com (http://www.STANDS4.com)
[5] (http://http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/uncgi/acronym)

Example Usage of initialisms
	AndyParkes: @GuyGregory can you get any more initialisms into a single tweet? ;-)
	sneha_dayal: Search Acronyms, Abbreviations and initialisms only at http://www.netinfobase.com
	digiphile: Added NB to the Top 50 Twitter Acronyms, Abbreviations & initialisms http://j.mp/r4C3D/cc @eric_andersen @hollisthomases

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