Sv
Abbreviation with 8 meanings
| Stands for | Sievert |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 8 |
| Categories | Units & Measurements, Transportation & Travel, Sports, Geography & Places, Writing & Everyday, Business & Finance |
| Also written | s.v., SV |
Sv has eight meanings. The most common are Sievert (metric and SI unit) and Saudia (airline code); it can also stand for Save, El Salvador, Sub verbo (under the word), Sailing vessel and Saves, plus 1 more listed below.
Meanings of Sv at a glance
| # | Sv stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sievert | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 2 | Saudia | Transportation & Travel › Airline Code |
| 3 | Save | Sports › Baseball |
| 4 | El Salvador | Geography & Places › Country Code |
| 5 | Sub verbo (under the word) | Writing & Everyday › Latin |
| 6 | Sailing vessel | Transportation & Travel › Maritime |
| 7 | Saves | Sports › Ice Hockey |
| 8 | Schedule variance | Business & Finance › Project Management |
1. Sievert
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
Equivalent and effective radiation dose, which adjusts absorbed energy for the type of radiation and the sensitivity of each organ to estimate health risk. Everyday exposures are measured in millisieverts or microsieverts.
Example: Workers at the plant are limited to 20 mSv per year averaged over five years.
Swedish medical physicist Rolf Sievert gave the unit its name. One sievert equals 100 rem, the older US unit. A dose of about 1 Sv received at once can cause radiation sickness, whereas natural background radiation averages roughly 2.4 mSv per year worldwide.
2. Saudia (SV)
Transportation & Travel · Airline Code Abbreviations
Saudi Arabia's national airline, based in Jeddah with major operations in Riyadh, carrying large numbers of pilgrims for the Hajj and Umrah. It is a member of SkyTeam.
Example: Saudia SV 22 from JFK to Jeddah fills up with pilgrims before Hajj season.
ICAO code SVA; callsign "Saudia." Founded in 1945 with a single DC-3 given to King Abdulaziz by US President Franklin Roosevelt. It was known as Saudi Arabian Airlines until a rebranding. A new national carrier, Riyadh Air, is being launched alongside it.
3. Save (SV)
Sports · Baseball Abbreviations
Credit to a relief pitcher who finishes a win while protecting a lead of three runs or fewer, enters with the tying run on deck, or pitches the last three innings. Closers are judged mainly by saves.
Example: The closer earned his 40th SV with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Invented by Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman and made official in 1969, the first new official stat since the RBI. Mariano Rivera holds the career record with 652, and Francisco Rodriguez set the single-season mark of 62 in 2008. In hockey SV counts a goaltender's saves.
4. El Salvador (SV)
Geography & Places · Country Code Abbreviations
El Salvador, capital San Salvador, alpha-3 SLV, has used the US dollar since 2001 and in 2021 became the first country to make bitcoin legal tender, a status scaled back in 2025.
Example: Bitcoin ATMs in SV were installed under the government's Chivo wallet program.
The code is SV, not ES, which belongs to Spain. The language code sv means Swedish, a common localization error. El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America.
5. Sub verbo (under the word) (s.v.)
Writing & Everyday · Latin Abbreviations
Cites an entry in a dictionary or encyclopedia by its headword instead of by page number. Chicago style uses it for alphabetically arranged reference works, where entry names stay stable across printings.
Example: See Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. "nice," for the word's earlier sense of foolish or ignorant.
The plural is s.vv. (sub verbis) when several entries are cited. Chicago recommends citing well-known reference works this way in notes and usually leaving them out of the bibliography. It is sometimes expanded as sub voce, "under the word," with the same abbreviation. The headword that follows is placed in quotation marks.
6. Sailing vessel (SV)
Transportation & Travel · Maritime Abbreviations
Prefix for a ship or boat propelled primarily by sails, used by tall ships, sail training vessels and cruising yachts. It is also written S/V.
Example: SV Seven Seas anchored in the bay after a month crossing the Pacific.
Some owners distinguish sailing yachts with SY. Sailing vessels with auxiliary engines still use SV if sails are their main propulsion. The tall ship community uses the prefix on vessels taking part in races and festivals.
7. Saves (SV)
Sports · Ice Hockey Abbreviations
Number of shots on goal a goaltender stops in a game or season. Box scores show it beside shots against, and a 40-save game is considered a busy night.
Example: Box score: Vasilevskiy, 34 SV on 36 shots.
A save is credited only for shots that would otherwise have entered the net. In baseball SV means a relief pitcher's save, a completely different statistic.
8. Schedule variance (SV)
Business & Finance · Project Management Abbreviations
Earned value minus planned value, expressing schedule progress in money: a negative figure means less work has been completed than planned to date.
Example: SV of -$60,000 tells us testing is behind.
Because it is measured in currency, SV should be read alongside the actual schedule dates on the critical path.
Related abbreviations
More metric and SI unit abbreviations
- rad – Radian
- S – Siemens
- SI – International System of Units
- sr – Steradian
- T – Tera- (trillion)
- um – Micrometer (micron)
- Wb – Weber
- y – Yocto- (septillionth)
See all 64 metric and SI unit abbreviations →