Acronym and Abbreviation Dictionary

I don't know who made the first acronym, but what a floodgate was opened with it.

An acronym is defined by dictionary.com as a word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women's Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging.

There you go. Two acronyms right there.

No matter what field you work in, you are probably using acronyms. I spent 23 years in the electrical field, throwing around terms like EMT (electrical metallic tubing), SSR (solid state relay), and BT (break time!). Now, I'm in the ultimate acronym field, information technology. Yikes, I have to learn a new acronym every day! My favorite recently learned term is LAMP. It stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL (which is not really an acronym, but a trademark), and PHP. Together they make up the commonest scenario for open-source dynamic web technology.

That last acronym is particularly fascinating. PHP once meant Personal Home Page. That was the early incarnation of a dynamic scripting language. Later, when the language was greatly improved upon, it was given a new definition: The P stood for the original PHP, followed by Hypertext Processing.

See what a techie is up against?

Wit that, I present today's FamilyFirst site: Acronym and Abbreviation Dictionary. Here's their mission:

With more than 475,000 human-edited entries, Acronym Finder is the world's largest and most comprehensive database of acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. Combined with the Acronym Attic, Acronym Finder contains more than 3 million acronyms and abbreviations.

Wow. I never even heard of initialisms!

So anyhow, any acronym that you ever heard of is listed here, probably with multiple definitions. Take FEMA, for instance. There are NINE listings! The embattled government agency has lots of company.

http://www.acronymfinder.com

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