BA
Abbreviation with 7 meanings
| Stands for | Bachelor of Arts |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 7 |
| Categories | Education & Academia, Writing & Everyday, Transportation & Travel, Business & Finance, Geography & Places, Science & Engineering |
| Also written | Ba |
BA has seven meanings. The most common are Bachelor of Arts (degree) and Bathroom (classified ad); it can also stand for British Airways, Business analyst, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Buenos Aires and Barium.
Meanings of BA at a glance
| # | BA stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bachelor of Arts | Education & Academia › Degree |
| 2 | Bathroom | Writing & Everyday › Classified Ad |
| 3 | British Airways | Transportation & Travel › Airline Code |
| 4 | Business analyst | Business & Finance › Job Title |
| 5 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Geography & Places › Country Code |
| 6 | Buenos Aires | Geography & Places › City and Neighborhood |
| 7 | Barium | Science & Engineering › Chemical Element |
1. Bachelor of Arts
Education & Academia · Degree Abbreviations
Undergraduate degree, usually four years in the US and three in England and Wales, in the humanities, social sciences, languages and arts, and at many liberal arts colleges in the sciences as well. Compared with a BS in the same subject, it generally requires fewer major credits and more foreign language and breadth courses.
Example: Lena graduated with a BA in political science and minors in Spanish and history.
AP style writes B.A. and prefers "bachelor's degree" in running text; Chicago uses BA without periods. Harvard, Princeton and a few other schools keep the Latin word order and award an AB. At Oxford and Cambridge a BA can later be upgraded to an MA without further study, and the ancient Scottish universities award a four-year MA as their first arts degree.
2. Bathroom
Writing & Everyday · Classified Ad Abbreviations · also used in business
Counts bathrooms in housing listings, as in "3BR/2BA," with half baths shown as decimals such as 1.5BA. Buyers and renters use it to filter search results.
Example: Updated 3BR/2.5BA townhouse with attached garage and a fenced yard.
A full bath has a toilet, sink and tub or shower; a half bath, or powder room, has only a toilet and sink; and a three-quarter bath has a shower but no tub. Listings may also write ba, bth or bath. The same letters stand for a Bachelor of Arts degree, so context separates them.
3. British Airways
Transportation & Travel · Airline Code Abbreviations
Flag carrier of the United Kingdom, based at London Heathrow, and a founding member of the oneworld alliance. BA operates one of the largest long-haul networks in the world and is part of International Airlines Group with Iberia and Aer Lingus.
Example: BA 117 from Heathrow to JFK leaves Terminal 5 at 11:35.
ICAO code BAW; radio callsign "Speedbird," inherited from the speedbird logo of Imperial Airways and BOAC. BA was formed in 1974 by merging BOAC and BEA and was privatized in 1987. With Air France, it operated Concorde from 1976 until 2003, using flight numbers BA 1 to BA 4.
4. Business analyst
Business & Finance · Job Title Abbreviations
Professional who analyzes how an organization works and defines requirements for improvements, often for new IT systems, by interviewing stakeholders, mapping processes and writing specifications. BAs act as a bridge between business users and technical teams.
Example: The BA documented 46 requirements for the new claims system after shadowing adjusters for a week.
The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) offers certifications such as CBAP. In consulting firms, "business analyst" is also an entry-level title for recent graduates. BA is far more widely known as a Bachelor of Arts degree and as British Airways.
5. Bosnia and Herzegovina
Geography & Places · Country Code Abbreviations
Bosnia and Herzegovina's alpha-3 code, BIH, spells out the country's initials. Governed under the 1995 Dayton Agreement, it has two entities, the Federation and Republika Srpska, plus the Brčko District, with Sarajevo as its capital.
Example: The bus ticket from Split to Mostar listed the destination country as BA.
BA also means Bachelor of Arts and British Airways. The convertible mark (BAM) is pegged to the euro. Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics.
6. Buenos Aires
Geography & Places · City and Neighborhood Abbreviations
Capital of Argentina, frequently shortened to BA by travelers and expatriates. Its residents are called porteños, and the city is the birthplace of tango.
Example: Steak dinners in BA rarely start before 10 p.m.
Avenida 9 de Julio in BA is one of the widest avenues in the world. BA also abbreviates Bachelor of Arts and British Airways.
7. Barium (Ba)
Science & Engineering · Chemical Element Abbreviations
Patients drink a chalky barium sulfate suspension, the "barium meal," so that X-rays can outline the digestive tract; barium itself (element 56) is a reactive alkaline earth metal. Barite, the natural sulfate, weights the drilling mud used in oil and gas wells, and barium compounds color fireworks green.
Example: Fireworks chemists rely on Ba compounds for green stars and strontium for red ones.
Carl Wilhelm Scheele distinguished baryta (barium oxide) from lime in 1774, and Humphry Davy isolated the metal by electrolysis in 1808. The name comes from Greek barys (heavy), after the dense mineral barite. Soluble barium compounds are poisonous; the sulfate is safe for imaging only because it does not dissolve in the body.
Related abbreviations
More degree abbreviations
- AOS – Associate in Occupational Studies
- AS – Associate of Science
- ASN – Associate of Science in Nursing
- AuD – Doctor of Audiology
- BArch – Bachelor of Architecture
- BAS – Bachelor of Applied Science
- BBA – Bachelor of Business Administration
- BCom – Bachelor of Commerce
See all 139 degree abbreviations →