AcronymFinder.com passes the 1 million definition milestone

I once took stock of the acronyms and abbreviations I had collected and I marveled. I had a list of about 1,000 definitions and they were in a word-processing document that I revised and reprinted periodically for my personal reference. The year was 1986, and I could never have imagined that someday that 40-page document would grow to be a 40,000-page document—1,000 times as large!

On 10 Dec 2010, the new abbreviation definition, MDS, a French abbreviation meaning "Atelier de Mineralisation des Solvants Organiques"—referring to an organic solvent facility—was verified and added to the Acronym Finder database, and, as a result, it has now passed the 1 million definition milestone. I'm amazed all over again. Not just because of the sheer size of the database, but because of the millions of users over the past 14 years the site has been online who have contributed new terms, corrections, and feedback that have made the site what it is today—the most comprehensive resource of its kind that has ever existed.

Less than two years ago, we rolled over 750,000 terms. Thanks to many new editors, we have grown very rapidly in a very short time. But every new term is still carefully reviewed and verified by a trained (and paid) editor. Since then, we've added an average of over 375 new terms every single day! And we're not finished, as we have many thousands more to check, many thousands more contributed each month, and many new acronyms and abbreviations are being invented every day, all over the world. Our mission, with your help, is to get them all into Acronym Finder.

So, someone might congratulate us on this milestone, but really, the congratulations and kudos go to all those users and contributors for helping us to build the largest human-edited database of acronyms and abbreviations. Thank you everyone! And stay tuned...

Sincerely,

Mike Molloy, CAW
(Chief Acronym Wrangler ;-)

Acronym Finder rolls over 750,000 definitions!

On Saturday, January 31, 2009 at about 7:46pm EST, an editor reviewed and added the 750,000th meaning to the Acronym Finder database!

The abbreviation added was NPQTL, which stands for "National Project on the Quality of Teaching and Learning", an Australian education project to develop and implement national teacher competency standards.

Hitting the three quarters of a million milestone is pretty exciting, especially when we only "rolled over" the 600,000 count less than a year ago.

That means in just under 10 months our editors (paid, not volunteer) carefully reviewed, classified, and added 150,000 definitions!

We appreciate all the millions of wonderful Acronym Finder users around the world who have contributed to this database for the past nearly 11 years. There's no way we could have built such a comprehensive free resource without your help. Thank you, and keep those new abbreviations coming. We look forward to telling you when we reach the 1 million definition milestone!

Sincerely,

Mike Molloy
Chief Acronym Wrangler :-)

Acronym Finder rolls over 600,000 definitions

This morning, we added our 600,000th definition to the database!

In case you're wondering, the definition we added to reach this milestone was "Precision Fluency Shaping Program" or PFSP.

The Precision Fluency Shaping Program is a comprehensive therapy for the treatment of stuttering and was developed by Ronald L. Webster, PhD. It's now administered by Ross S. Barrett, M.A., CCC/SLP. Mr. Barrett is the Director of Fluency Programs and an instructor of Clinical Otolaryngology at the Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Since Acronym Finder went online in 1997 with over 43,000 definitions, the database has grown by over 550,000 human-edited terms! Our conservative estimates are that we have spent over 6,000 hours reviewing and editing the definitions we have so far. And we're still growing by almost 150 new terms every day of the year!

We thank all our loyal users from around the world who suggest new acronyms and abbreviations for what is arguably the largest and most comprehensive resource of its kind.

AcronymFinder.com grows to more than 200,000 unique abbreviations

Acronym Finder, the world’s largest and most respected acronym and abbreviation search engine reaches a new content milestone.

Estes Park, CO (PRWEB) January 8, 2008 – Mountain Data Systems, LLC, the publisher of Acronym Finder, the most comprehensive reference site for abbreviations and acronyms, reports that its database now contains over 200,000 unique abbreviations with over 585,000 abbreviation meanings.

Mike Molloy, founder and developer of the human-edited AcronymFinder.com, said, "This milestone demonstrates a depth of content in the human-edited Acronym Finder not found in any other abbreviation reference resource. Even respected printed dictionaries and dictionary websites have ‘only’ 200,000 to 300,000 unique words. We have over 200,000 unique terms, with nearly 600,000 definitions. And generally speaking, abbreviations are expressing more complex concepts and ideas than a single word.”

Acronym Finder's counting methodology is conservative -- each unique abbreviation’s meaning is counted only once, even if it appears in multiple categories. Molloy adds, “Some of our competitors put a single definition in five different categories, and count that as five definitions.”

Thanks to AcronymFinder.com’s loyal users and contributors, the total number of human-edited abbreviation definitions in Acronym Finder is expected to reach a record 600,000 in early 2008. Molloy says, “traditional word dictionaries grow by a few hundred new words each year, but Acronym Finder grows by about 5,000 verified abbreviation definitions each month.”

Molloy adds, “And in the unlikely event you can’t find the definition for an abbreviation at Acronym Finder, try the Acronym Attic, an unedited sister site. The ‘Attic’ has another 3 million or so candidate acronyms and abbreviations we haven’t reviewed yet.”

About AcronymFinder.com:

The privately held AcronymFinder.com is the largest and most authoritative acronym and abbreviation reference website and has been online for over 10 years. AcronymFinder.com receives more than 1 million unique visitors each month from over 210 countries.

Copyright (c) 2008, Mountain Data Systems

Press Contact
Mike Molloy
AcronymFinder.com
970-586-5556

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Happy Holidays and the OLPC XO Laptop

First, we here at Acronym Finder send our best wishes to everyone -- have a Happy Holiday season, and a wonderful 2008!

We very much appreciate your contributions, suggestions, feedback, and visits to Acronym Finder during 2007. We thank you for helping us be the best, most complete database of abbreviations and acronyms on the planet!

Not too long ago, we added a new abbreviation to our database, OLPC, which stands for One Laptop per Child. The OLPC initiative is a non-profit foundation by Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab. The laptop, designed with children and education in mind is called the "XO". The OLPC foundation's goal is to:

"provide children around the world with opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological learning opportunities."

Recently, OLPC started its Give One Get One (G1G1) program. You pay $400 for two laptops, one of which will be sent to benefit a child in one of the OLPC target areas in the world, and the other XO is sent you. In the US, you can take a charity deduction for about half this amount, plus, T-Mobile is offering a one year subscription to its T-Mobile Hotspots.

We ordered an XO laptop at the beginning of the G1G1 program and just got it last week. We're very impressed with it! It may look and feel a little like a toy, but it's a fully functional laptop with wireless connectivity and a surprising amount of power for the size and price. And we feel good about contributing a laptop to a child who can benefit from it.

If you're interested in the G1G1 program, hurry, as the program ends on December 31, 2007!