G
Abbreviation with 9 meanings
| Stands for | Gram |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 9 |
| Categories | Units & Measurements, Sports, Arts & Entertainment, Science & Engineering |
| Also written | g |
G has nine meanings. The most common are Gram (metric and SI unit) and Giga- (billion) (metric and SI unit); it can also stand for Goals, General Audiences, Standard gravity (g-force), Acceleration due to gravity and General intelligence factor, plus 2 more listed below.
Meanings of G at a glance
| # | G stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gram | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 2 | Giga- (billion) | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 3 | Goals | Sports › Ice Hockey |
| 4 | General Audiences | Arts & Entertainment › Film, Television and Theater |
| 5 | Standard gravity (g-force) | Units & Measurements › Engineering Unit |
| 6 | Acceleration due to gravity | Science & Engineering › Physics |
| 7 | General intelligence factor | Science & Engineering › Psychology |
| 8 | Goaltender | Sports › Ice Hockey |
| 9 | Gravitational constant | Science & Engineering › Physics |
1. Gram (g)
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
One thousandth of a kilogram, about 0.035 ounce. Food labels, recipes, postal rates, jewelry and medicine doses use grams; a US nickel weighs 5 g and a paper clip about 1 g.
Example: Each serving contains 12 g of protein and 3 g of fiber.
Also spelled gramme in older British usage. The symbol is a lowercase g with no period and no s in the plural; gm, gms and grm are nonstandard, and gr properly means grain. The gram was first defined in 1795 as the mass of one cubic centimeter of water at the melting point of ice. In physics, an italic g denotes the acceleration of gravity.
2. Giga- (billion)
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
Represents 10^9, one billion in the modern short scale, in gigabyte, gigahertz, gigawatt and gigatonne. English speakers usually say it with a hard g ("GIG-a"), though dictionaries also accept a soft "JIG-a".
Example: A large nuclear reactor produces about 1 GW of electricity, enough for several hundred thousand homes.
From Greek gigas, giant; adopted in 1960. The soft-g pronunciation became famous through Doc Brown's "1.21 jigawatts" in the 1985 film Back to the Future. On drive labels GB means 10^9 bytes, while operating systems that count in binary report sizes in units of 2^30 bytes, which is why a "1 TB" drive shows up as about 931 GB.
3. Goals
Sports · Ice Hockey Abbreviations
Number of goals scored by a player, the first column in a skater's box-score line. A goal counts when the entire puck crosses the goal line between the posts, and it is also the basic scoring stat in soccer.
Example: Stat line: 2 G, 1 A, 5 SOG, 18:42 TOI.
Alex Ovechkin passed Wayne Gretzky's NHL career record of 894 goals on April 6, 2025. Gretzky's 92 goals in 1981-82 remain the single-season record. Three goals in a game is a hat trick, celebrated by fans throwing hats onto the ice.
4. General Audiences
Arts & Entertainment · Film, Television and Theater Abbreviations
MPA film rating meaning all ages are admitted; the film contains nothing most parents would consider offensive for children, though it is not necessarily made for kids.
Example: Rated G: General Audiences. All ages admitted.
G was one of the four original ratings in 1968. G-rated live-action films became rare from the 1980s onward, as studios feared the rating suggested a film only for small children. Many animated films now receive PG instead.
5. Standard gravity (g-force) (g)
Units & Measurements · Engineering Unit Abbreviations
Acceleration expressed as a multiple of standard gravity, 9.80665 m/s². Pilots, astronauts, roller-coaster designers and crash testers measure loads in g: fighter pilots in g-suits can sustain about 9 g.
Example: The coaster's first drop pulls 4.5 g at the bottom of the hill.
Often written G or called g-force, though it measures acceleration rather than force. At 1 g you feel your normal weight, and in free fall you experience 0 g. Phone accelerometers and car crash sensors report in g, and shock indicators on fragile shipments trigger at a set g level.
6. Acceleration due to gravity (g)
Science & Engineering · Physics Abbreviations
Acceleration of a freely falling object near Earth's surface, about 9.8 meters per second squared (32.2 feet per second squared). The standard value, 9.80665 m/s2, is also the unit for g-forces felt by pilots, astronauts and roller-coaster riders.
Example: Fighter pilots wear anti-g suits to withstand turns of up to 9 g.
Actual g varies from about 9.78 at the equator to 9.83 at the poles because of Earth's rotation and shape. The standard value was adopted in 1901. Lowercase g should not be confused with capital G, the universal gravitational constant, or with g for gram.
7. General intelligence factor (g)
Science & Engineering · Psychology Abbreviations
Statistical factor that captures the common variance among scores on diverse cognitive tests: people who do well on one type of test tend to do well on others. The g factor is what IQ tests primarily measure and predicts school and job performance better than any single narrow ability.
Example: Vocabulary and matrix-reasoning subtests both load strongly on g.
English psychologist Charles Spearman proposed g in 1904 after noticing that school grades in different subjects correlated positively, a pattern called the positive manifold. Modern models such as Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory place g at the top of a hierarchy of broad and narrow abilities. Always written as a lowercase italic g.
8. Goaltender
Sports · Ice Hockey Abbreviations
Player who guards the net, the only one allowed to handle the puck with his hands and to wear large pads and a blocker. Each team dresses two goaltenders, a starter and a backup.
Example: Roster note: G Smith (upper body) out tonight; backup starts.
Also called goalie or netminder. Martin Brodeur holds NHL career records for wins (691) and shutouts (125). Jacques Plante popularized the goalie mask in 1959. The Vezina Trophy goes to the best goaltender, voted by general managers.
9. Gravitational constant
Science & Engineering · Physics Abbreviations
Universal constant in Newton's law of gravitation that sets the strength of gravity between two masses, approximately 6.674 x 10^-11 newton square meters per kilogram squared. Its tiny value is why gravity is noticeable only for very large masses.
Example: Knowing G and the Moon's orbit lets astronomers calculate Earth's mass.
Henry Cavendish first measured the effect in 1798 with a torsion balance, in an experiment often described as "weighing the Earth." G is the least precisely known of the fundamental constants, with measurements disagreeing at the level of hundreds of parts per million. Capital G is distinct from lowercase g, the local acceleration of gravity.
Related abbreviations
More metric and SI unit abbreviations
- dm – Decimeter
- E – Exa- (quintillion)
- eV – Electronvolt
- F – Farad
- gsm – Grams per square meter
- Gt – Gigatonne
- Gy – Gray
- h – Hecto- (hundred)
See all 64 metric and SI unit abbreviations →