List of acronyms: W

This list contains acronyms, initialisms, and pseudo-blends that begin with the letter W.

For the purposes of this list:

acronym = an abbreviation pronounced as if it were a word, e.g., SARS = severe acute respiratory syndrome, pronounced to rhyme with cars
initialism = an abbreviation pronounced wholly or partly using the names of its constituent letters, e.g., CD = compact disc, pronounced cee dee
pseudo-blend = an abbreviation whose extra or omitted letters mean that it cannot stand as a true acronym, initialism, or portmanteau (a word formed by combining two or more words).

(a) = acronym, e.g.: SARS – (a) severe acute respiratory syndrome

(i) = initialism, e.g.: CD – (i) compact disc

(p) = pseudo-blend, e.g.: UNIFEM – (p) United Nations Development Fund for Women

(s) = symbol (none of the above, representing and pronounced as something else; for example: MHz – megahertz)

Some terms are spoken as either acronym or initialism, e.g., VoIP, pronounced both as voyp and V-O-I-P.

(Main list of acronyms)

W
- (s) Tungsten (from German Wolfram)
- (i) Watt
- (i) Wednesday
- (i) West
- (i) Games Won in sporting competitions

W0–9

W3C – (i) World Wide Web Consortium
w/ – (p) With: Software w/Documentation. Typically used in advertising or to abbreviate headings. Never used in formal body text.

WA

wa – (s) Walloon language (ISO 639-1 code)
WA
- (s) Namibia (FIPS 10-4 country code; from West Africa)
- Washington state (postal symbol)
- Western Australia (postal symbol)
- (i) World Archery (Federation)
- World Athletics
WAAC – (i) Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (Britain) (World War I UK)
WAAF – (i) Women's Auxiliary Air Force (World War II UK)
WAC
- (a) Western Athletic Conference
- (i) Women's Auxiliary Corps (World War II Canada)
- Women's Army Corps (World War II U.S.)
WACC – (a) Weighted Average Cost of Capital (accounting)
WACS – What-A-Cartoon! Show
WAD – (a) Weapons Alert Designator
WAGGGS – (a) World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts
WAGMI - (a) We're All Gonna Make It
WAGs – (p) Wives And Girlfriends (most notably of England national football team players at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, although the term existed earlier)
WAK – (s) Wake Island (ISO 3166 trigram, obsolete 1986)
WAL – see entry
WAN – (a) Wide area network
WAP – (a) Wireless Application Protocol
WAPIMA – (a) What a pain in my ass
WAR – (a) With All Respect
WAsP – (p) Short form of WAAAAP (Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program)
WASP
- (a) White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
- Wide Angle Search for Planets
- Women Airforce Service Pilots
WAYP – (a) White And Yellow Pages

WB

Wb – (s) Weber
WB
- (i) Warner Bros.
- Welcome Back (Internet shorthand)
WBA
WBC – (i) World Boxing Council
WBE – (i) Work Breakdown Element
WBIT – (i) Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament
WBO – (i) World Boxing Organization
WbW
- with best wishes
- white boy wasted

WC

WC – (i) Water Closet – Winston Churchill – World Cup (sports)
WCBO – (i) World Chess Boxing Organisation
WCBP – (i) World Center for Birds of Prey
WCCW – (i) World Class Championship Wrestling
WCL – (i) World Confederation of Labour
WCPA – (p) World Constitution and Parliament Association
WCS – (i) Weapon Control Status – Wildlife Conservation Society
WCW – (i) World Championship Wrestling
WCWCC – (p) World Committee for a World Constitutional Convention
WCWS – (i) Women's College World Series, the final phase of the NCAA Division I softball tournament in the US

WD

WDC – (i) Western Design Center – World Data Center
WDWR – Walt Disney World Resort
WDIN – Wildlife Disease Information Node

WE

WEBS – (a) Weapon Effectiveness Battle Simulation
WEC – (i) World Extreme Cagefighting
WEEE – (i) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment
WEF – (a) World Economic Forum
WEIRD – (a) Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic (cultural identifier of a disproportionate number of psychology test subjects)
WEM - (a) West Edmonton Mall
WEU – (i) Western European Union
WEZ – (a/i) Weapon Engagement Zone

WF

WF – (s) Wallis and Futuna Islands (ISO 3166 digram)
WFC – (i) Women's Forage Corps (World War I UK)
WFD – (i) Weapon(s) of Focused Destruction
WFF – (i) Wallops Flight Facility
WFI - Water for Injection
WFP – (i) World Food Program
WFT – (i) Washington Football Team (former NFL franchise name)
WFZ – (i) Weapons Free Zone

WG

WG – (i) Working Group – Wade–Giles
WGS 84 – World Geodetic System 1984
WGSRPD
- World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions
- an international biogeography based standardized placename system for flora + floristics locations.

WH

WH – (i) Wehrmacht Heer (German World War II army vehicle licence plate code)
WHAM – (a) Wisconsin Hydrogen-Alpha Mapping (telescope)
WHI – (i) Women's Health Initiative
WHIP – (a) Walks plus hits per inning pitched
WHO – (a) World Health Organization
WHS – (i) (U.S.) Washington Headquarters Services

WI

WI
- (s) Western Sahara (FIPS 10-4 country code)
- Wisconsin (postal symbol)
- (i) Women's Institute
WIA
- (i) Wounded In Action
- (a) Wireless Institute of Australia (Amateur Radio)
WIIFM - (i) What's in it for me?
WIE- (a) Windows Internet Explorer
WIMP
- (a) Weakly Interacting Massive Particle
- Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers
WIN-T – (i) Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
WIPO – (a/i) World Intellectual Property Organization
WIPP – (a) [Nuclear] Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
WIYN – (i) Wisconsin Indiana Yale NOAO telescope consortium

WJ

WJKK WJKF – Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ke Fateh, a Sikh greeting

WK

WK – (s) Wake Island (ISO 3166 digram, obsolete 1986)
WKYP – (a) Will Keep You Posted
WKX – (a) World Kickboxing Xtrm

WL

WL – (i) Wehrmacht Luftwaffe (German World War II air force vehicle licence plate code)
WLB – (i) Women's Land Brigade (World War II Canada)
WLF – (s) Wallis and Futuna Islands (ISO 3166 trigram)
wln – (s) Walloon language (ISO 639-2 code)
WLOG – (i) Without Loss Of Generality (see WOLOG)

WM

WM – (i) Wehrmacht Marine (German World War II navy vehicle licence plate code)
WMANUS – (a) West Midlands Area National Union of Students
WMD
- (i) Weapon[s] of Mass Destruction
- World Movement for Democracy †
WMI – (i) Wildlife Management Institute
WMO – (i) World Meteorological Organization

WN

WNA – (i) World Nuclear Association
WNBA – (i) Women's National Basketball Association
WNF – (i) "Will Not Fix"
WNL - (i) Medical initialism for "Within Normal Limits"
WNIT – (i) Women's National Invitation Tournament
WNSD – (i) What's New, Scooby-Doo?
WNW – (s) West North-West

WO

wo – (s) Wolof language (ISO 639-1 code)
WO – (i) Warrant Officer
W/O – (p) Without: Software w/o Documentation
w/o
- Weight per cent
- without
WOF - Width of Fabric
WOFT – (a) Waste Of F***ing Time
WOFTAM – (a) Waste Of F***ing Time And Money
WOI – (a/i) Wheels Of Italy
wol – (s) Wolof language (ISO 639-2 code)
WOLOG (or WLOG) – (a/i) WithOut Loss Of Generality
WOM – (a) Write Only Memory
WOS – (i) Wilson Ornithological Society
WOSM
- (i) World Organization of the Scout Movement
- Worldwide Oil Spill Model
WOT – (i) Waste Of Time
WoW or WOW – (a) World of Warcraft

WP

WP
- (i) White Phosphorus (ammunition)
- (i) Workers' Party (Singapore)
WPB – (i) War Production Board during World War II
WPE – (i) World Pork Expo
WPK – (p) Wider Peacekeeping
WPN – (i) Wizards Play Network (sanctioning body for several games, most notably Magic: The Gathering)
WPT
- (i) World Poker Tour
- World Premiere Toons
WPP - (i) Witness Protection Program

WQ

WQS – World Qualifying series (surf)

WR

WR – (i) Wide receiver (gridiron football)
WRAC – (a) Women's Royal Army Corps (World War II UK)
WRAIR – (a) Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
WRBWWRM – (i) "We Read Best What We Read Most"
WRC – (i) World Rally Championship
WRC - World Religions Conference
WRNS – (i) Women's Royal Naval Service (World War II UK) (pronounced "wrens")
WRVS – (i) Women's Royal Voluntary Service, now only known by the acronym (UK)
WRS – (i) Worldwide Reference System
wrt or w/r/t – (i) with respect to or with regard to, depending on context
WRT
- (i) Writer Response Theory
- (i) WRT - "With respect to", especially in fields such as Mathematics.
- (i) World Rally Team
- (i) Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC (Urban Planning and Design)
- (i) Wireless Ronin Technologies (digital signage)
- (i) NHS Workforce Review Team
- The Linksys routers whose model name start with 'WRT'
- (i) Wholesale, Trade, Retail sector, category in employment and economics statistics
- (i) Wireless Receiver/Transmitter ( computer networks/IT )
- Third party firmware for the Linksys WRT routers and compatible models from other vendors.
- (i) Web Runtime (WRT) is a portable application framework developed by Nokia that allows the creation of widgets on the S60 Platform.

WS

WS
- (s) Samoa (ISO 3166 and FIPS 10-4 country code digram; from the country's former name of Western Samoa)
- (i) Writer to the Signet (a Scottish solicitor)
WSC – (i) Weapon System Catalogue
WSDL – (i) Web Services Description Language
WSJ – (i) (The) Wall Street Journal
WSL
- (i) White Star Line (shipping company)
- Women's Super League, currently used to describe England's top women's association football league and formerly to describe that country's top women's rugby union competition
- Workers' Socialist League (UK political party)
WSM
- (s) Samoa (ISO 3166 trigram; from Western Samoa)
- (i) Winchester Short Magnum (family of rifle cartridges)
WSMR – (a/i) White Sands Missile Range ("whiz-murr")
WSROC – (a) Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils
WSSM – (i) Winchester Super Short Magnum (family of rifle cartridges)
WST
- (i) Water Soluble Tetrazolium (assay)
- (s) Samoan tālā (ISO 4217 currency code)
WSTC – (i) Women Signallers Territorial Corps (World War II UK)
WSUS – Windows Server Update Services
WSW – (s) West South-West

WT

WTA – (i) Women's Tennis Association (cf. WTA Tour, operated by this body)
WTB
- (i) Wales Tourism Board
- Warenterminbörse Hannover
WTB – (i) Want to Buy (a commonly used phrase in various online games and buy/sell messageboards)
WTC – (i) World Trade Center
WTF – (i) What the f**k?; also What a Terrible Failure (android)
WTFH – (i) What The F**king Hell
WTH – (i) What the Hell
WTNWD – (i) Wait To Next Working Day (a commonly used phrase to maintain work life balance)
WTO – (i) World Trade Organization
WTS – (i) Want to Sell (a commonly used phrase in various online games and buy/sell messageboards)

WU

WU – (i) Wabash University – Washington University in St. Louis – Western Union – Windows Update – Work unit – WU Wien (German Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration)
WUU2 – What you up to – Internet slang popular with teenagers.
WUBU2 – What you been up to

WV

WV – (s) West Virginia (postal symbol)
WVA – (i) World Veterinary Association
WVIAC – (i) West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
WVR – (i) Women's Volunteer Reserve (World War II UK)
WVSC – (i) Women's Volunteer Service Corps (World War II Canada)
WVU – (i) West Virginia University
WVUIT – (i) West Virginia University Institute of Technology (note, however, that the initialism is almost never used; the popular name of the school is "WVU Tech")

WW

WW – see entry
WWE – (i) World Wrestling Entertainment
WWF
- (i) World Wide Fund for Nature, from its original name of World Wildlife Fund, which remains the legal name in the U.S. and Canada
- World Wrestling Federation
WWI – (i) World War I
WWII – (i) World War II
WWIII – (i) World War III
WWJD – (i) "What would Jesus do?"
WWS – (i) Wheaton Warrenville South High School
WWV – (i) Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (catalog of the works of Richard Wagner, and callsign of NIST's shortwave radio station in Fort Collins, Colorado)
WWW – (i) World Wide Web
WWWF – (i) World Wide Wrestling Federation

WX

WXO – (i) Weather [Executive] Officer

WY

WY – (s) Wyoming (postal symbol)
WYSIWYG – (a) What You See Is What You Get (pronounced "wizzy-wig". See entry for derived acronyms)
WYSIWYP – (a) What You See Is What You Print / What You See Is What You Pay ("wizzy-whip")
WYRFTTM – When You Are Free Talk To Me

WZ

WZ – (s) Eswatini (FIPS 10-4 country code)