(Main list of acronyms)

__NOTOC__

  • p – (s) pico
  • P – (s) Peta – Phosphorus

P0–9

  • P2P – (i) Peer-to-peer (networking)
  • P3I or P<sup>3</sup>I – (i) PrePlanned Product Improvement

PA

  • pa – (s) Punjabi language (ISO 639-1 code)
  • pA – (s) picoampere
  • Pa
  • (s) pascal
  • Protactinium
  • PA
  • (a/i) Pamela Anderson
  • (s) Panama (ISO 3166 digram)
  • Paraguay (FIPS 10-4 country code)
  • (i) Partial Agonist
  • (s) Pennsylvania (postal symbol)
  • petampere
  • (i) PolyAmide (Nylon)
  • Prince Albert piercing
  • Public Address (vocal amplification system)
  • Public Affairs
  • PA 6 – (s) Nylon 6 (PolyAmide) (similarly for PA 11, 12, 46, 66, 610)
  • PAA – (i) Position Area for Artillery
  • PAB – (s) Panamanian balboa (ISO 4217 currency code)
  • PABX – (p) Private Automated Branch eXchange (company phone system)
  • PAC
  • (i) Pan Africanist Congress
  • (a) Partial Solar Calibrator
  • Patriot Advanced Capabilities
  • Political action committee
  • (a/i) Primary Auditory Cortex
  • PACER – (a) Public Access to Court Electronic Records (U.S. federal courts)
  • PACOM – (p) (U.S.) Pacific Command
  • PADD
  • (a) Personal Access Display Device (as seen in the Star Trek franchise)
  • Petroleum Administration for Defense Districts, used for data collection in the U.S. petroleum industry
  • PADI – (a) Professional Association of Diving Instructors
  • PAEK – (i) PolyArylEtherKetone
  • PAFC – (i) Plymouth Argyle Football Club
  • PAH – (i) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
  • PAHO – (i) Pan American Health Organization
  • PAI
  • (i) PolyAmide Imide
  • Pre-Approval Inspection (pharma)
  • PAK – (s) Pakistan (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • Pakistan – (p) Punjab, Afghan states, Kashmir, sIndh, baluchiSTAN
  • PAL
  • (a) Phase Alternating Line (TV standard)
  • (p) Philippine Airlines
  • PAM – (a/i) Precision Attack Missile
  • Pamida – (p) Patrick, Michael, and David, sons of the department store chain's co-founder Jim Witherspoon
  • PAMELA
  • (a) Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics
  • (a) Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory
  • pan – (s) Punjabi language (ISO 639-2 code)
  • PAN
  • (s) Panama (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • (a) Partai Amanat Nasional (Indonesian, "National Mandate Party") – Indonesian political party
  • Partido Acción Nacional (Spanish, "National Action Party") – political parties in El Salvador, Mexico, and Nicaragua
  • Partido de Avanzada Nacional (Spanish, "National Advancement Party") – Guatemalan political party
  • Personal area network
  • (i) PolyAcryloNitrile
  • (a) Programa de Asistencia Nutricional (Spanish, "Nutritional Assistance Program") – U.S. federal program for nutritional needs of poor families in Puerto Rico
  • PANS – (a) Pretty Advanced/Awesome Network Services (cf. POTS)
  • Pan-STARRS – (p) Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System
  • PAO
  • (i) Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos (Greek: Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, "Pan-Athenian Athletic Club")
  • (a/i) Poly Alpha Olefin
  • Public Affairs Officer
  • PAOK – (i) Panthessalonikeios Athlitikós Ómilos Konstantinoupoliton (Greek Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών, "Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolites")
  • PAP
  • (i) People's Action Party (Singapore)
  • (a) Internet slang for Post a Picture
  • PAPI – (a) Precision Approach Path Indicator (aviation)
  • PAR – (s) Paraguay (IOC and FIFA trigram, but not ISO 3166)
  • PARC – (a) Palo Alto Research Center
  • PAROS – (a) Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (treaty)
  • PARP – (i) (NATO Partnership for Peace) Planning And Review Process
  • PARWIG – (a) Power Augmented Ram Wing In Ground (aeroplane wing shape)
  • PAS – See entry
  • PASA – (i) PolyAmide, Semi-Aromatic (Nylon)
  • PASGT – (i) Personnel Armor System, Ground Troops
  • PASR – (i) Personnel Accounting and Strength Reporting
  • PatD - (s) Panic! at the Disco
  • PATH – (a) Port Authority Trans-Hudson
  • PAWS
  • (a) Phased Array Warning System
  • Progressive Animal Welfare Society
  • PAYD – (a) Pay As You Drive
  • PAYE – (a) Pay As You Earn

PB

  • Pb – (s) Lead (Latin Plumbum)
  • PB – (p) PolyButylene
  • PBA
  • (i) Philippine Basketball Association
  • Professional Bowlers Association
  • PBB – (p) PolyBrominated Biphenyl
  • PBC
  • (i) Push Button Connect, a WPS method
  • (i) Playback Control, a feature on Video CD and Super Video CD
  • PBCK – (i) Problem Between Chair and Keyboard (computer help desk in-joke)
  • PBD – (p) PolyButaDiene
  • PBDE – (i) PolyBrominated Diphenyl Ether
  • PBI – (p) PolyBenzImidazole
  • PBIS - Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports
  • PBN – (p) PolyButylene Naphthalate
  • PBOH – (i) Please Become Old History
  • PBR
  • (i) Pabst Blue Ribbon (beer brand)
  • Professional Bull Riders
  • PBS
  • (i) Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (Australia)
  • Public Broadcasting Service (U.S.)
  • Public Broadcasting Services (Malta)
  • PBRT - may stand for: Physically Based Raytracing, an open source software rendering system for physically correct image synthesis.
  • PBT – (p) PolyButylene Terephthalate
  • PBX – (p) Private Branch eXchange (company phone system)

PC

  • pC – (s) picocoulomb
  • PC
  • (s) petacoulomb
  • U.S. Pacific Islands Trust Territory (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986)
  • (i) Personal computer
  • Player Character (roleplaying)
  • Politically Correct / Political Correctness
  • post cibum (Latin, "after meals")
  • PCAS – (i) Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey
  • PCB – see entry
  • PCC
  • (i) NATO Partnership Coordination Cell
  • Posterior Cingulate Cortex
  • Pre-Command Course
  • Presidents Conference Committee
  • PCCB – (i) Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake
  • PCCIP – (i) President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection
  • PCE – (p) PerChlorEthylene
  • PCI
  • (s) U.S. Pacific Islands Trust Territory (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1986)
  • (i) Peripheral Component Interconnect (computer bus)
  • PCIe – (i) Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (computer bus)
  • PCL – (i) Passive Coherent Location
  • PCMCIA – (i) Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (People Can't Memorise Computer-Industry Acronyms)
  • PCN – (s) Pitcairn Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • PCP
  • (p) phencyclidine
  • Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (formerly Pneumocystis carinii)
  • (i) Probabilistically Checkable Proof
  • PCPI – Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement (AMA)
  • PCR – (i) Polymerase chain reaction
  • PCSSD - (p) Pulaski County Special School District
  • PCT
  • (i) Pacific Crest Trail
  • Patent Cooperation Treaty
  • PCTE
  • (i) Portable Common Tool Environment
  • (i) Punjab College of Technical Education
  • PCZ – (s) Panama Canal Zone (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1980)

PD

  • Pd – (s) Palladium
  • PD
  • (i) per diem (Latin: (calculated) by the day)
  • Point of Departure
  • Police Department
  • Postal District
  • Potential Difference
  • Principal Deputy
  • Privatdozent
  • Public domain
  • PD – (i) Product Director—Example: CERDEC Product Director C4ISR and Network Modernization
  • PDA
  • (i) Personal Digital Assistant
  • Predicted Drift Angle
  • Public Display of Affection
  • Push-Down Automaton
  • PDD
  • (i) Past Due Date
  • Presidential Decision Directive
  • PDF
  • (i) [[Panamanian Defense Forces|Panama[nian] Defense Forces]] (abolished 1990)
  • Portable Document Format
  • Principal Direction of Fire
  • PDG
  • (i) President Director General
  • Product Development Group
  • PDL
  • (i) Premier Development League, a former name of the U.S. minor soccer league now known as USL League Two
  • Pure Dumb Luck (Texan punk band)
  • PDN – (i) Pull-Down Network
  • PDP
  • (i) Programmable Data Processor
  • Performance Development Plan
  • PDQ
  • (i) Pre-Defined Queries (Siebel packages)
  • Pretty Damn Quick
  • PDRY – (i) People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (obsolete since 1990)
  • PDT – (i) [[Pacific Daylight Time|Pacific Daylight [Saving] Time]] (UTC-7 hours)
  • PDU
  • (i) Police Dog Unit
  • Power Distribution Unit
  • Protocol Data Unit
  • PDVSA – (a/i) Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Spanish, "Venezuelan Petroleum Company")

PE

  • PE – Professional Engineer
  • PE – (s) Ice Pellets (old style METAR Code) – Peru (ISO 3166 and FIPS 10-4 country code digram) – (i) Physical Education – Premature Ejaculation – (s) Prince Edward Island (postal code) – Price to Earning ratio (used for equity shares) – Plant Extract
  • PEBCAC – (a) Problem Exists Between Chair and Computer (IT help desk in-joke)
  • PEBKAC – (a) Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair (ditto)
  • PEEK – (i) PolyEtherEtherKetone
  • PEET – (a) Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy
  • PEGIDA – (a) Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (German, "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West")
  • PEI – (i) Prince Edward Island – PolyEtherImide
  • PEK – (i) PolyEtherKetone
  • PEMDAS - The order of operations in math (Parentheses, Exponents, Division, Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction)
  • PEN
  • (s) Peruvian sol (ISO 4217 currency code)
  • (i) Poets, Essayists and Novelists, the original meaning of the initialism of the organization now known as PEN International
  • PolyEthylene Naphthalate
  • PEO – (i) Παγκύπρια Εργατική Ομοσπονδία (Greek for "Pancyprian Federation of Labour") – Philanthropic Educational Organization – PolyEthylene Oxide – Professional Employer Organization – Professional Engineers Ontario
  • PEPFAR – (a) President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief
  • PER – (s) Peru (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • perl – (a) usually lower case Practical Extraction and Report Language
  • PERM - Program Electronic Review Management
  • PES – (i) PolyEtherSulfone
  • PEST – (a) UK Public Engagement with Science and Technology
  • PET – (a/i) Personal Electronic Transactor – Pierre Elliott Trudeau – Positron Emission Tomography (as in PET scan) – PolyEthylene Terephthalate (plastic) – (a) Preliminary English Test
  • PETA – (a/i) pentaerythritol triacrylate – People Eating Tasty Animals – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
  • PETE – (i) PolyEthyleneTErephthalate
  • PETP – (i) PolyEthyleneTerePhthalate

PF

  • pF – (s) picofarad
  • PF
  • (s) French Polynesia (ISO 3166 digram)
  • petafarad
  • (i) Phenol Formaldehyde (resin)
  • Power forward, a player position in Australian rules football, basketball, and ice hockey
  • PFD – (i) Permanent Fund Dividend = personal flotation device
  • PFE – (i) Permanent Forest Estate
  • PFLAG – (p) Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays ("pee-flag")
  • PFIY – (a) Please Fix it Yourself ("pee-fiy")
  • PFO – (i) Pissed, Fell Over (medical diagnosis in-joke)
  • PfP – (i) Partnership for Peace
  • PFW
  • (i) Pro Football Weekly (magazine and website covering the National Football League)
  • Purdue University Fort Wayne

PG

  • pg – (s) picogram
  • Pg – (s) petagram
  • PG –
  • (i) propylene glycol
  • (s) Papua New Guinea (ISO 3166 digram)
  • (i) Parental Guidance (movie rating)
  • Point guard (basketball position)
  • PG-13 (disambiguation) – (p) (movie rating)
  • PGCE – (p) Postgraduate Certificate in Education
  • PGD – (i) Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis
  • PG&E – (i) Pacific Gas & Electric
  • PGENI – (i) Pharmaco-Genetics for Every Nation Initiative
  • PGH – (i) Pre-implantation Genetic Haplotyping
  • PGK – (s) Papua New Guinea kina (ISO 4217 currency code)
  • PGM – (i) Precision-Guided Munition
  • PGP – (i) Pretty Good Privacy

PH

  • pH
  • (s) parts of hydrogen (acidity/alkalinity index)
  • picohenry
  • PH
  • (i) Passive Homing (missile guidance system)
  • (s) petahenry
  • Philippines (ISO 3166 digram)
  • (i) Probability of Hit
  • Professional hunter (abbreviation used mostly in East and Southern Africa)
  • Public Health
  • Purple Heart
  • (i) Pakatan Harapan (Malaysia)
  • PHA
  • (p) PolyHydroxyAlkanoate
  • (i) Potentially hazardous asteroid
  • Ph.D. – (p) Philosophiæ Doctor (Latin, "Doctor of Philosophy")
  • PHEV – (i) Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
  • PHF
  • (i) Paired helical filaments (aggregations of tau proteins in the human brain associated with tauopathy)
  • Potentially Hazardous Food
  • Premier Hockey Federation (defunct North American women's ice hockey league)
  • PHL – (s) Philippines (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • PHQ - Patient Health Questionnaire
  • PHP
  • (s) Philippine peso (ISO 4217 currency code)
  • (i) PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (originally Personal Home Page (Tools))

PI

  • pi – (s) Pāli language (ISO 639-1 code)
  • Pi – (s) Pebi
  • PI
  • (i) PolyImide
  • PolyIsoprene
  • Private Investigator
  • PIB – (i) PolyIsoButylene
  • PIC – (i) Person In Charge
  • PICNIC – (a) Problem In Chair Not In Computer
  • PICS – (i) Private Investment Capital Subscription
  • PID
  • (i) Pelvic inflammatory disease
  • (p) Plan Identification Number
  • Positive Identification
  • Procedural Identification
  • (i) Procurement Identification Description
  • PIDOOMA – (a/i) Pulled It Directly Out Of My Ass
  • PIF – (a/i) Partners in Flight
  • PIG – (a) Pipeline Inspection Gauge
  • PIGS (also PIIGS or PIIGGS) – (a) Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain; PIIGS if including Ireland; PIIGGS if including the United Kingdom (Great Britain)
  • PIGS – Passenger Inert Guidance Systems – Movable tape barrier, typically used on airport aprons to guide passengers to/from their aircraft avoiding danger areas.
  • PIM
  • (a/i) Parameterized Ionospheric Model
  • Path of Intended Motion
  • Pediatric Index of Mortality
  • Personal Information Manager/Management
  • Presence and Interworking Mobility
  • Processor-In-Memory
  • Program Integration Manager
  • Protocol Independent Multicast
  • PIN – (a) Personal Identification Number
  • PINF – (i) People In Need Foundation (Czech charitable organisation)
  • PIPA – (a/i) Program on International Policy Attitudes
  • PIR – (i) Priority Intelligence Requirement
  • PIRA – (a) Provisional Irish Republican Army
  • PIREPS – (p) Pilot Reports
  • PITA – (a) Pain In The Ass
  • P.I. - Philippines Islands
  • PITS - Person In The Seat. A common problem as to why a computer is not working properly. It is a PITS issue.

PJ

  • pJ – (s) picojoule
  • PJ – (s) petajoule
  • PJHQ – (p) Permanent Joint Headquarters
  • PJs – (p) Pajamas ("pee-jayz")

PK

  • K – (s) picokelvin
  • PK – (s) Pakistan (ISO 3166 and FIPS 10-4 country code digram) – petakelvin – (i) Player Kill[er] – Probability of Kill – (p) PolyKetone – (i) Pulemet Kalashnikova (Russian ПК пулемет Калашникова, "Machinegun Kalashnikov")
  • PKA – (i) previously known as – professionally known as
  • PKE – (i) Partnership of Kindermusik Educators
  • PKI – (i) public key infrastructure (cryptography)
  • PKM – (i) Pulemet Kalashnikova Modernizirovanniy (Russian ПКМ пулемет Калашникова модернизированный, "Machinegun Kalashnikov Modernised")
  • PTSD – (i) Posttraumatic stress disorder
  • PTUI – (a/i) Plain-Text User Interface ("pa-too-ey") (cf CLI)

PU

  • Pu – (s) Plutonium
  • PU
  • (s) Guinea-Bissau (FIPS 10-4 country code)
  • (i) Polyurethane
  • (s) United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1986)
  • Pub – (p) Publication
  • PUG – (a/i) PET Users Group
  • PUN – (a/i) Pull-Up Network
  • PUP – (a/i) Pull-Up Point
  • PUR – (s) Puerto Rico (IOC and FIFA trigram, but not ISO 3166)
  • pus – (s) Pashto language (ISO 639-2 code)
  • PUS – (s) United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands (ISO 3166 trigram; obsolete 1986)

PV

  • pV – (s) picovolt
  • PV – (s) petavolt
  • PVC
  • (i) Permanent Virtual Circuit
  • PolyVinyl Chloride
  • Premature Ventricular Contraction
  • Primary Visual Cortex
  • PvE – (i) Player versus Environment
  • PvP – (i) Player versus Player
  • PVR – (i) Personal Video Recorder
  • PvZ – (i) Plants vs. Zombies

PW

  • pW – (s) picowatt
  • PW
  • (s) Palau (postal symbol; ISO 3166 digram)
  • petawatt
  • PWA – (i) Pirates With Attitude
  • PWBA – (p) Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration
  • PwC – (i) PricewaterhouseCoopers (international accounting firm)
  • PWC – (i) PieceWise Constant (describing a mathematical function)
  • PWHL
  • (i) Professional Women's Hockey League, a North American women's ice hockey league
  • Provincial Women's Hockey League, a junior ice hockey league operating in the Canadian province of Ontario
  • PWL – (i) PieceWise Linear (describing a mathematical function)
  • PWLC – (i) PieceWise Linear and Concave/Convex (describing a mathematical function)
  • PWM - (i) Pulse-width Modulation
  • PWP – (i) Plot, What Plot? / Porn Without Plot (denotes plotless, um, "feel-good" stories in online fiction, especially fanfic or erotic fiction)
  • PWR – (i) Pressurized Water Reactor
  • PWV – (i) Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging, the original name for the South African province now known as Gauteng, and still used to refer to the metropolitan agglomeration at the core of the province

PX

  • PX – (p) Post eXchange

PY

  • PY – (s) Paraguay (ISO 3166 digram) – Person-Year – (i) Portsmouth yardstick
  • PYF – (s) French Polynesia (ISO 3166 trigram)
  • PYG – (s) Paraguayan guaraní (ISO 4217 currency code)
  • PYMWYMI – (a) Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

PZ

  • PZ – (s) Panama Canal Zone (ISO 3166 digram; obsolete 1980) – (i) Pickup Zone

References