Decoding acronyms
Sometimes you want to know the meaning of an acronym. Perhaps it’s new, or perhaps it’s jargon — a term used within a particular community or subculture.
There are two ways to go here. You could look it up on a comprehensive site such as The Free Dictionary, where you may get dozens of possible meanings. Take a look at this Free Dictionary search for the acronym OP, for example.
Or, you could look it up at the Urban Dictionary. A Uclue user, willdeans, describes the advantage of this approach:
People submit their own definitions and then vote on the definition. As a result, the most common uses of an acronym become immediately clear. Chances are the definition you are looking for will be in the top few
Thanks, Will!
January 28th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
or you can go straight to Abbreviations.com!