Abbreviations in English

Abbreviations are words or phrases that have been shortened for convenience. 

You may come across these several times during your stay in the UK, when you are reading English or if you learn English in the UK.

Here are some examples of some abbreviations you may see and how you can use them:

a.m. – stands for ante meridiem, which means ‘before noon’ in Latin- used to express time in the morning
A.S.A.P - ‘as soon as possible’- write after an urgent task that needs to be done soon
e.g. – stands for exemplii gratia, which means 'for example'- follow up with an example
G.M.T - stands for 'Greenwich Mean Time', which is the time zone for London
HQ - stands for 'Headquarters'
i.e. - stands for id est, which means 'that is' in Latin
no. - number
p.m. - stands for post meridiem, which means 'after noon' in Latin- used to express time in the afternoon
Rd - road

You can find even more on the BBC Learning English website.

These are the most common abbreviations that are used - you may see others, so feel free to ask what they mean too! We'd love to hear from you in the comments section, so you can give us an example of where you saw an abbreviation in English!