Common Abbreviations

540 abbreviations in 11 subcategories

Everyday abbreviations used in English writing: Latin abbreviations such as e.g., i.e. and etc., titles and honorifics, email and office shorthand, dictionary and grammar labels, and citation abbreviations. Entries note punctuation and style conventions in American and British English.

• Everyday
• Grammar and Dictionary
• Email and Office
• Classified Ad
• Latin
• Title and Honorific
• Citation and Bibliography
• Mail and Postal
• Proofreading and Correction Mark
• Genealogy
• Given Name

Everyday Abbreviations

Everyday abbreviations turn up on price tags, forms, menus, invitations, road signs and quick notes: approx., incl., qty, w/, DOB, BYOB and many more. Most are informal and fine in notes, labels and casual writing, but style guides such as AP and Chicago recommend spelling the words out in formal prose. Several have more than one meaning (est., temp., b/w), so the surrounding context, such as a price tag versus a weather report, decides which is intended.

All 82 everyday abbreviations →

Grammar and Dictionary Abbreviations

Dictionaries, grammars and language textbooks rely on compact labels: part-of-speech tags such as n., v., adj. and adv., usage and register labels such as colloq., obs. and derog., grammatical terms such as pl., pp. and nom., and etymology labels such as OE, Lat. and Gk. Conventions vary between publishers, so a label printed in full in one dictionary may be abbreviated in another, and the front matter of each dictionary lists the abbreviations it uses. Linguists use a further set of standardized labels (SG, NOM, NP, IPA) in academic description.

All 93 grammar and dictionary abbreviations →

Email and Office Abbreviations

Email and office abbreviations are the shorthand of workplace communication: deadlines (EOD, COB, NLT), availability (OOO, WFH, PTO), email mechanics (CC, BCC, RE, Fwd) and meeting jargon (AOB, 1:1, MoM). Many are regional, with COP and w/c common in Britain and PFA or WFO in India, so a term that is routine in one office can puzzle readers elsewhere. Spelling out an abbreviation on first use, or giving an exact time instead of EOD, avoids misunderstandings with clients and new colleagues.

All 60 email and office abbreviations →

Classified Ad Abbreviations

Classified ads, rental listings and online marketplaces developed a dense shorthand because newspapers once charged by the word or line: 2BR/1BA, W/D, OBO and NIB pack a lot of information into a few characters. The same conventions now appear on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, resale apps and job boards. Read them carefully, since terms like OBO, ONO and FCFS set expectations about price and pickup, and condition codes such as NWT and EUC are graded by the seller rather than by any independent standard.

All 70 classified ad abbreviations →

Latin Abbreviations

Latin abbreviations such as e.g., i.e., etc. and et al. are part of everyday English writing, while others (ibid., op. cit., q.v.) belong to scholarly footnotes, and a few survive only on coins, prints, gravestones and old business letters. American English normally writes them lowercase with periods (e.g., i.e.), while British style often drops the periods (eg, ie). Most style guides treat the common ones as naturalized English, set them in roman rather than italic type, and prefer to keep e.g., i.e. and etc. inside parentheses, notes and lists in formal prose.

All 53 Latin abbreviations →

Title and Honorific Abbreviations

Courtesy titles, honorifics and official titles such as Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Gov. and Sen. go before a name, while suffixes and post-nominal letters such as Jr., Esq. and OBE follow it. American English puts a period after abbreviated titles (Mr., Dr.), whereas British English normally omits it when the abbreviation ends with the last letter of the full word (Mr, Dr, Cllr). News style guides such as AP abbreviate some titles before a full name (Gov., Sen., Rep.) and spell others out, and forms of address in speech and on envelopes follow their own conventions, noted on each page.

All 54 title and honorific abbreviations →

Citation and Bibliography Abbreviations

Citation and bibliography abbreviations identify the parts of a source (vol., no., p., ch.), the people responsible for it (ed., trans., comp.) and information that is missing (n.d., n.p.). The major style guides treat them differently: MLA spells out many roles ("edited by"), APA writes (Ed.) and uses p. and pp. in parenthetical citations, and Chicago keeps the traditional short forms in notes. Standard identifiers such as ISBN, ISSN and DOI, and the names of the style guides themselves, are also covered here.

All 58 citation and bibliography abbreviations →

Mail and Postal Abbreviations

Mail and postal abbreviations appear on envelopes, packages, forms and order pages: c/o and Attn route a letter to the right person, SASE and IRC prepay a reply, CMRRR proves delivery, and APO, FPO and BFPO address military mail overseas. US Postal Service conventions favor capital letters without periods in the address block, while British usage has its own equivalents such as FAO, SAE and P&P. State codes and street-address abbreviations such as St and Ave are covered on their own pages.

All 35 mail and postal abbreviations →

Proofreading and Correction Mark Abbreviations

Proofreaders' marks are the shorthand editors write in the margins of typeset proofs, such as lc (lowercase), tr (transpose) and TK (to come), while correction abbreviations such as awk, frag and CS are what teachers write on student essays. Both systems pair a mark in the text, which locates the problem, with an abbreviation in the margin that explains it. Publishers' charts, including those in the Chicago Manual of Style and British Standard BS 5261, standardize the proofreading marks; grading abbreviations vary from teacher to teacher and handbook to handbook.

All 29 proofreading and correction mark abbreviations →

Genealogy Abbreviations

Genealogists, family historians and peerage reference works use a compact set of abbreviations for life events (b., d., m., bur.), relationships (dau., wid., 1C1R) and uncertain dates (abt, bef., aft., bet.). Several are Latin, such as ob., s.p. and d.s.p., inherited from older pedigrees and church monuments. The GEDCOM file standard uses similar tags, so the same shorthand appears in family-tree software and online genealogy databases.

All 29 genealogy abbreviations →

Given Name Abbreviations

Old documents such as wills, deeds, census returns, ship manifests and parish registers routinely shorten common first names: Wm. for William, Chas. for Charles, Jas. for James, Jno. for John. Clerks used contractions, keeping the first and last letters and often raising the end above the line, or simple truncations, and the forms persisted in signatures and company names into the 20th century. Misreading them, for example confusing Jas. with Jos., is a common source of errors in transcriptions and genealogical indexes.

All 19 given name abbreviations →

Edited by the AbbreviationList.com team. Spotted an error or a missing meaning? Contact us.