Glossary

Glossary: Abbreviations and Haitian Lwa

Abbreviations

AG - attorney general; both state and federal chief law enforcement officer
CBP - Customs and Border Patrol, Department of Homeland Security
CERN - Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, Geneva, Switzerland; the European laboratory for particle physics and site of the LHC
CIA - Central Intelligence Agency
CPO - chief petty officer, a Navy and Coast Guard non-commissioned officer
CPS - Child Protective Services, a division of most states’ Health and Human Resources Departments or their equivalent
CRT - cathode ray tube; the picture tube in the original television
DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Defense
DoD - Department of Defense
DSS - Diplomatic Security Service, unit of Department of State, provides security for U.S. embassy officials plus other related duties
E-5, E-6 - sergeant and staff sergeant in Army and Marine Corps; non-commissioned officer pay grades. These grades have different rank names in the other military services
EE - electrical engineering, “double-E”
EMF - electromagnetic frequency
eV - electron volt; the energy an electron gains when accelerated by one volt of electricity. K prefix - thousand; M prefix - million. G prefix - billion. See TeV below
FBO - Fixed base operator, airport general aviation office
fMRI - functional MRI, MRI application to visualize oxygenated blood flow in the brain to detect neural activity
HMCM - hospital corpsman, master chief, U.S. Navy.
IC - integrated circuit. Miniature electronic device (chip) consisting of tiny transistors, resistors, capacitors, and other circuit components to perform a discrete task
ITF - International Taekwondo Federation
LED - light-emitting diode
LHC - Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Switzerland. World’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
LT - lieutenant, first or second, in shorthand speech (Marines or Army). Pronounced “ell-tee”
MMA - mixed martial arts
MP - member of U.K. Parliament; also military police
MPS - Metropolitan Police Service, Greater London’s police force, informally “Scotland Yard”
MRI - magnetic resonance imaging, the machine or the process, which excites protons using RF to image structures inside bodies
NCO - non-commissioned officer
NDA - non-disclosure agreement. Contract to restrict a party from sharing confidential information of another party.
NSA - National Security Agency, Department of Defense
OAS - Organization of American States
RF - radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation
RFID - radio-frequency identification
SAT/PSAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test, achievement screening exam used for college admissions. “P” is for preliminary, a kind of practice exam
SI - International System of units, for example, gram and meter
STEM - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; educational program
TA - teaching assistant in university
TDY - temporary duty
TeV - tera (trillion) electron volts, an amount of energy equivalent to 1.602176634×10^-16 joules
TeV/c² - eV mass equivalent at atomic scale. 1 TeV/c² = 1.78266192×10^-24 kilograms
TSA - Transportation Security Administration, Department of Homeland Security
UHF - ultra high frequency
VA - Department of Veteran’s Affairs
XO - executive officer

Terms

(most Haitian Creole (Kreyòl) terms have several different spellings)