Abbreviation search
Type in the abbreviation in upper or lower
case and press Enter or click the Find button. Abbreviations may contain a space or other characters (but only if that's the way they are
written).
Do not put periods
after letters in the abbreviation or search string (e.g., U.S.A,
instead use USA) unless the abbreviation actually contains
a period (like X.500). Don't use single or double quotes (' or ")
around or in the abbreviation
(they will be ignored).
Also, the following characters cannot
be part of search string: @, #, $, %, ^, and ?
Watch out for plurals.
For example, you might want to know what the abbreviation
"pixels" means. Search for "pixel",
not "pixels" (without the quotes, of course).
If the abbreviation you're searching for isn't found, be sure you are spelling it correctly.
If you're searching for a word or phrase, see
Word in Meaning
You can search for words or concepts by
using the word in meaning (reverse lookup) option then
typing in a phrase or list of words. This will return a list of abbreviations containing the phrase or words you enter.
Searching for a word or string within the meaning of the abbreviation can help you find an abbreviation if you don't know what it is. For example, you could find all abbreviations
containing (and thus probably having to do with) "education" or "technology" or "protocol".
Select the word in meaning option and then type
in a word to search for. For example, if you type in "restrict" you'll get abbreviations containing
"restrict". If you're looking for "restricted",
you should use that search string.
To search for multiple words or
concepts, type in each word separated by a space. This does a Boolean
AND search for all the words you type in. So, if you typed in security
system
your search would return all abbreviations where both these words were found in the meaning (in
any order). Do not
use AND or OR with the keywords.
To find an exact phrase, put the phrase
in quotes ("). To search for all abbreviations containing the exact
phrase "security system", you would type in "security
system" This would return abbreviations with meanings
containing this exact phrase.
As with short abbreviations, searching for
words frequently found in the meanings of abbreviations can generate very
large lists. For example, the word "system" appears
in over 25,000 definitions, generating an enormous (and almost useless)
result list.
Rank is our measure of the relative "commonness", "popularity" or
"relevance" of the meaning of an abbreviation. You'll see that the results
are sorted by decreasing rank, which means the most commonly used
meanings will be listed first. You can re-sort the list with an
alphabetical sort if you like and you'll still be able to see each
meaning's rank. Rank is available in normal abbreviation searches, and
"word in meaning" (reverse lookup) searches.
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