GB
Abbreviation with 6 meanings
| Stands for | Gigabyte |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 6 |
| Categories | Units & Measurements, Geography & Places, Sports, Medical |
| Also written | Gb |
GB has six meanings. The most common are Gigabyte (data unit) and Great Britain (country name); it can also stand for United Kingdom, Gigabit, Games behind and Gallbladder.
Meanings of GB at a glance
| # | GB stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gigabyte | Units & Measurements › Data Unit |
| 2 | Great Britain | Geography & Places › Country Name |
| 3 | United Kingdom | Geography & Places › Country Code |
| 4 | Gigabit | Units & Measurements › Data Unit |
| 5 | Games behind | Sports › Baseball |
| 6 | Gallbladder | Medical › Anatomy |
1. Gigabyte
Units & Measurements · Data Unit Abbreviations
The everyday unit for phone storage, memory, data plans and downloads: one billion bytes in the decimal sense used by manufacturers and carriers, or 1,073,741,824 bytes (2^30) in binary usage. An HD movie typically takes 3 to 5 GB.
Example: The phone comes with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage.
Storage makers use decimal gigabytes while Windows reports binary units labeled GB, so a "256 GB" drive appears as about 238 GB before the operating system takes its share. Class-action lawsuits in the 2000s over this gap led manufacturers to print definitions such as "1 GB = 1 billion bytes" on packaging. Streaming HD video uses roughly 3 GB per hour of mobile data.
2. Great Britain
Geography & Places · Country Name Abbreviations
The island containing England, Scotland and Wales, the largest island in Europe at about 209,000 square kilometres, and by extension the political unit of those three countries. Team GB is the brand of the British Olympic team, which in fact represents the whole United Kingdom.
Example: Team GB finished the regatta with three gold medals.
GB is also the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for the entire United Kingdom, used in data, banking (IBANs begin GB) and shipping, even though Northern Ireland is not part of Great Britain. The GB oval sticker on British cars abroad was replaced by UK in September 2021. GB also means gigabyte.
3. United Kingdom
Geography & Places · Country Code Abbreviations
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for the United Kingdom, from Great Britain, even though the UK also includes Northern Ireland. The alpha-3 code is GBR, British IBANs begin GB, and the pound is GBP.
Example: Select GB in the country field for addresses in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
The UK uses the .uk domain, not .gb, which was registered but never widely used. Northern Ireland's VAT numbers for goods use XI under post-Brexit arrangements. The code UK is exceptionally reserved by ISO.
4. Gigabit (Gb)
Units & Measurements · Data Unit Abbreviations
One billion bits, the unit for fast network links and fiber internet plans. A 1 Gb/s connection can in theory download a 1 GB file in 8 seconds.
Example: Our office switch has 48 ports at 1 Gb with four 10 Gb uplinks to the core.
Gigabit Ethernet over copper (1000BASE-T), standardized in 1999, is the common wired speed for homes and offices, while data centers run 10, 25, 100 and 400 Gb links. DRAM chips are sized in gigabits too: eight 8 Gb chips make an 8 GB memory module. As with megabits, the lowercase b means bits.
5. Games behind
Sports · Baseball Abbreviations
Standings column showing how far a team trails the division or wild-card leader: the difference in wins plus the difference in losses, divided by two. The leader shows a dash.
Example: Standings: Phillies 88-60, Braves 82-66, 6.0 GB.
Half-game differences arise when teams have played different numbers of games. The "magic number" counts the leader's wins plus opponent losses needed to clinch. GB is also used in NBA and NHL standings and stands for gigabyte in computing.
6. Gallbladder
Medical · Anatomy Abbreviations
Pear-shaped organ beneath the liver that stores and concentrates bile and squeezes it into the duodenum after fatty meals. Ultrasound reports describe GB wall thickness, stones, sludge, polyps and distension.
Example: GB wall 5 mm with pericholecystic fluid and stones: acute cholecystitis.
Gallstones are common, and most people who have them never develop symptoms. Cholecystectomy is one of the most frequent abdominal operations, and people digest normally without a gallbladder. A calcified "porcelain gallbladder" was long considered a strong cancer risk, though newer data suggest the risk is lower than once thought.
Related abbreviations
More data unit abbreviations
- EB – Exabyte
- EiB – Exbibyte
- FLOPS – Floating-point operations per second
- FPS – Frames per second
- Gbps – Gigabits per second
- GiB – Gibibyte
- GT/s – Gigatransfers per second
- KB – Kilobyte
See all 36 data unit abbreviations →
More country name abbreviations
- DR – Dominican Republic
- DRC – Democratic Republic of the Congo
- FRG – Federal Republic of Germany
- FSM – Federated States of Micronesia
- GDR – German Democratic Republic
- KSA – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- NI – Northern Ireland
- PNG – Papua New Guinea
See all 30 country name abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.