T
Abbreviation with 10 meanings
| Stands for | Temperature |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 10 |
| Categories | Medical, Units & Measurements, Arts & Entertainment |
| Also written | t |
T has ten meanings. The most common are Temperature (patient assessment) and t-statistic (statistics); it can also stand for Tablespoon, Tera- (trillion), Tonne (metric ton), Teaspoon and Tesla, plus 3 more listed below.
Meanings of T at a glance
| # | T stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Temperature | Medical › Patient Assessment |
| 2 | t-statistic | Units & Measurements › Statistics |
| 3 | Tablespoon | Units & Measurements › Cooking |
| 4 | Tera- (trillion) | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 5 | Tonne (metric ton) | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 6 | Teaspoon | Units & Measurements › Cooking |
| 7 | Tesla | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 8 | Tuesday (schedule code) | Units & Measurements › Day of the Week |
| 9 | Teen | Arts & Entertainment › Video Game |
| 10 | Time designator (ISO 8601) | Units & Measurements › Time |
1. Temperature
Medical · Patient Assessment Abbreviations
Body temperature written in vital-sign strings as "T", with the route (oral, tympanic, temporal, axillary or rectal) and unit noted. Fever in adults is commonly defined as 38.0 C (100.4 F) or higher.
Example: T 38.6 tympanic, chills; blood cultures x2 drawn before antibiotics.
Core readings from bladder, esophageal or pulmonary artery probes are the most accurate. Oral readings are affected by recent hot or cold drinks. Many charts record a single T alongside Tmax, the highest value in the previous 24 hours. In older or immunosuppressed patients, infection may cause little or no fever.
2. t-statistic (t)
Units & Measurements · Statistics Abbreviations
The test statistic in a t-test: an estimate divided by its standard error, compared with Student's t distribution to obtain a p-value. t-tests compare a mean with a value, two group means or paired measurements.
Example: Scores improved after training, t(29) = 3.12, p = .004.
William Sealy Gosset developed the t distribution in 1908 while working at the Guinness brewery in Dublin and published under the pseudonym "Student" because Guinness restricted staff publications. The distribution has heavier tails than the normal, approaching it as degrees of freedom grow. Welch's t-test is preferred when group variances differ.
3. Tablespoon
Units & Measurements · Cooking Abbreviations
Capital T is recipe-card shorthand for tablespoon, the larger of the two common measuring spoons. It appears mostly in handwritten family recipes, older American cookbooks and cramped ingredient lists, where 1 T equals 3 t (teaspoons) or about 15 mL.
Example: Cream 1/2 c butter with 1 c sugar, then beat in 2 T milk and 1 t vanilla.
The system relies entirely on letter case: uppercase T is tablespoon and lowercase t is teaspoon, so a smudged or retyped card can triple an ingredient by mistake. When salt, baking soda or baking powder looks excessive, check whether T and t were swapped. Modern food magazines and recipe sites generally prefer the unambiguous Tbsp and tsp.
4. Tera- (trillion)
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
Trillion-fold multiplier (10^12) used in terabyte, terawatt-hour and terahertz. National and global energy statistics rely on it; worldwide electricity generation is roughly 30,000 TWh per year.
Example: The backup server has 48 TB of raw disk capacity spread across twelve drives.
From Greek teras, monster, the prefix entered SI in 1960. Capital T is shared with the tesla, the SI unit of magnetic flux density, but the two rarely collide: as a prefix T is always joined to another symbol, as in TB or THz, while the tesla stands alone after a number, as in a 3 T MRI scanner. In recipes, a capital T means tablespoon instead.
5. Tonne (metric ton) (t)
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
A metric unit of mass equal to 1,000 kg, about 2,205 pounds: slightly heavier than the US short ton (2,000 lb) and slightly lighter than the British long ton (2,240 lb). Trade, shipping, harvests and carbon emissions are reported in tonnes.
Example: The bridge has a weight limit of 7.5 t for all vehicles.
Also called a metric ton; the spelling tonne helps distinguish it from the two older tons. It is not an SI unit but is accepted for use with SI, and its multiples kt, Mt and Gt are standard in emissions and mining statistics. Writing T for tonne is wrong, since T is the tesla and the tera- prefix. Climate reports use tCO2e, tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
6. Teaspoon (t)
Units & Measurements · Cooking Abbreviations
Lowercase t is the compact recipe-card form of teaspoon, about 5 mL. It pairs with capital T for tablespoon, so the case of a single letter is all that separates a measure from one three times larger.
Example: Season with 1 t kosher salt and 1/4 t cayenne before searing the chicken.
Common in vintage cookbooks, index-card recipes and mid-century magazine ingredient lists. Because case is easily lost when a recipe is retyped in all capitals or dictated by voice, many editors convert t and T to tsp and Tbsp. A cake recipe calling for 1 T of baking soda almost certainly means 1 t.
7. Tesla
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
Magnetic flux density equal to one weber per square meter. Hospital MRI scanners operate at 1.5 T or 3 T, while Earth's magnetic field at the surface is only about 25 to 65 microteslas.
Example: The hospital installed a new 3 T MRI scanner for neurological imaging.
The unit was named in 1960 after Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla. The older CGS unit, the gauss, is still used for magnets and magnetometers: 1 T equals 10,000 gauss. Research magnets have exceeded 45 T in steady fields. As a unit, T stands alone after a number; as the tera- prefix, it attaches to another symbol, as in TB.
8. Tuesday (schedule code)
Units & Measurements · Day of the Week Abbreviations
Timetables and course schedules use T for Tuesday, as in TTh or TR for Tuesday-and-Thursday classes. Because Thursday also begins with T, schools pair it with Th or R to keep the two days apart.
Example: Office hours: T 2 to 4 p.m. and R 10 to noon, or by appointment.
On older schedules a lone T can mean either Tuesday or Thursday, so look for a legend. Systems that use two-letter codes write Tu for Tuesday. Pill organizers and calendar grids labeled S M T W T F S use T twice and rely on position to tell the days apart.
9. Teen
Arts & Entertainment · Video Game Abbreviations
ESRB rating for games suitable for ages 13 and up, which may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling or infrequent strong language.
Example: Fortnite is rated T for Teen because of its fantasy violence.
Many popular online games and fighting games carry a T rating. Content descriptors on the box explain the reasons. The equivalent PEGI rating varies, often 12 or 16.
10. Time designator (ISO 8601)
Units & Measurements · Time Abbreviations
The letter that separates date from time in ISO 8601 timestamps, as in 2026-11-04T15:30:00Z. In ISO 8601 durations it marks where the time components begin, so P1M is one month while PT1M is one minute.
Example: The API returns timestamps like 2026-11-04T15:30:00Z in UTC.
RFC 3339, the internet profile of ISO 8601, allows a space in place of the T for readability. A trailing Z or an offset such as +01:00 states the time zone; a timestamp with neither is local time and ambiguous. Durations begin with P (period), as in P3Y6M4DT12H30M5S.
Related abbreviations
More patient assessment abbreviations
- RLE – Right lower extremity
- RR – Respiratory rate
- RUE – Right upper extremity
- SpO2 – Peripheral oxygen saturation
- TA – Temporal artery temperature
- Tmax – Maximum temperature
- TPR – Temperature, pulse, respiration
- TTP – Tender to palpation
See all 65 patient assessment abbreviations →
More statistics abbreviations
- SSE – Sum of squared errors
- SSR – Sum of squares due to regression
- SST – Total sum of squares
- STDEV – Standard deviation (spreadsheet function)
- Var – Variance
- VIF – Variance inflation factor
- z – z-score
See all 88 statistics abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.