API
Abbreviation with 3 meanings
| Stands for | Application programming interface |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 3 |
| Categories | Technology & Computing, Organizations & Companies, Medical |
API has three meanings. The most common are Application programming interface (programming) and American Petroleum Institute (professional association and labor union); it can also stand for Active pharmaceutical ingredient.
Meanings of API at a glance
| # | API stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Application programming interface | Technology & Computing › Programming |
| 2 | American Petroleum Institute | Organizations & Companies › Professional Association and Labor Union |
| 3 | Active pharmaceutical ingredient | Medical › Pharmacy |
1. Application programming interface
Technology & Computing · Programming Abbreviations
A defined set of rules, endpoints and data formats through which one piece of software requests services or data from another. Web APIs let apps fetch weather, process payments or post messages over HTTP, while library and operating-system APIs expose functions to code running on the same machine.
Example: The weather app pulls its forecasts from a third-party API and caches them for ten minutes.
The term appears in computing literature as early as 1968, and Roy Fielding's 2000 description of REST shaped the modern web API. Public APIs usually require an API key, enforce rate limits and are documented with standards such as OpenAPI. In Google v. Oracle (2021), the US Supreme Court held that Google's reuse of Java API declarations was fair use. Pronounced as letters, with the plural APIs. Loosely, "the API" can mean either the interface specification or the service behind it.
2. American Petroleum Institute
Organizations & Companies · Professional Association and Labor Union Abbreviations
Trade association for the US oil and natural gas industry, which lobbies on energy policy and develops widely used technical standards for equipment and operations, as well as the API certification mark on motor oil.
Example: The motor oil bottle shows the API "donut" with the SP service rating.
Founded in 1919, it grew out of a World War I committee that coordinated fuel supplies with the government. It has published hundreds of industry standards, many adopted into regulations, and the API gravity scale measures the density of crude oil. In software, API means application programming interface, a far more common meaning.
3. Active pharmaceutical ingredient
Medical · Pharmacy Abbreviations
The chemical substance in a medicine that produces its therapeutic effect, as opposed to excipients such as binders, fillers and coatings. Manufacturers buy APIs in bulk and formulate them into finished dosage forms.
Example: The recall traced the nitrosamine impurity to a single API supplier in Zhejiang.
A large share of the APIs in US generic drugs are made in India and China, a dependence highlighted by drug shortages and by the 2018 valsartan recalls for nitrosamine contamination. APIs must be manufactured under good manufacturing practice rules. In computing, API means application programming interface, a far more common meaning online.
Related abbreviations
More programming abbreviations
- ADR – Architecture decision record
- ADT – Abstract data type
- AMQP – Advanced Message Queuing Protocol
- AOT – Ahead-of-time (compilation)
- ASCII – American Standard Code for Information Interchange
- AST – Abstract syntax tree
- awk – Aho, Weinberger and Kernighan
- Bash – Bourne Again Shell
See all 154 programming abbreviations →
More professional association and labor union abbreviations
- ANSI – American National Standards Institute
- AOA – American Optometric Association
- APA – American Psychological Association (style)
- APhA – American Pharmacists Association
- APS – American Physical Society
- APWU – American Postal Workers Union
- ASA – American Society of Anesthesiologists
- ASCE – American Society of Civil Engineers
See all 95 professional association and labor union abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.