Abbreviated words are everywhere in writing.  Abbreviations are so plentiful I thought I’d go over some useful ones here.  First though, let us define what an abbreviation is.  An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase.  Abbreviations are good to use in writing, to save space and time, but they are essential to know when you are reading because they are used so frequently in writing in English.

Abbreviations usually consist of a letter or group of letters that are taken from the word or phrase that is being abbreviated.  For example, the word abbreviation can itself abbreviated to: abbr. or abbrv.  Sometimes there is a period (.) at the end of the group of letter or between each letter of an abbreviation and sometimes there is no period; this just depends on the specific abbreviation.  Acronyms are considered a type of abbreviation and are also found plentifully* in English.  Acronyms are made by taking the first letter of each word in a phrase and creating a new word, for example: CEO = Chief Executive Officer.

Here is a list of some very common abbreviations in English you might want to learn.

A.D. – “Anno Domini”** = the year 0 in the Julian and Gregorian calendars indicating time after Christ’s birth
A.M. – “ante meridiem” = before noon
asap – as soon as possible
Attn. – attention
B.C. – before Christ
Dept. – department
C – Celsius
c/o – care of (for correspondences)
Dr. – doctor
etc. –  “et cetera” = and so forth
e.g. – “exempli gratia” = for example
Jr. – junior
km – kilometer
F – Fahrenheit
ft. – feet
i.e. – “id est” =  that is
in. – inches
lb. – pound
n/a – not applicable
mi. – miles
min. – minutes
MD – Doctor of Medicine
Mr. – mister
Mrs. – misses
Ms. – miss
oz. – ounce
Ph.D. – “philosophiae doctor” = having a doctorate degree
P.M. – “post meridiem” = after noon
Prof. – professor
p.s. – post script
tbsp. – tablespoon
tsp. – teaspoon
vs. – versus
yd. – yards

*a great deal

** the words in quotation marks ” ” above are all Latin words that are the base of abbreviations used in English