3-letter words that end in a
- qua — as; as being; in the character or capacity of: The work of art qua art can be judged by aesthetic criteria only.
- rca — (formerly) Radio Corporation of America
- rda — The RDA of a particular vitamin or mineral is the amount that people need each day to stay healthy. RDA is an abbreviation for 'recommended daily amount'.
- rha — Regional Health Authority
- ria — a long, narrow inlet of a river that gradually decreases in depth from mouth to head.
- rma — Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst)
- rna — biology: ribonucleic acid
- rsa — (cryptography, company) (The initials of the authors) 1. RSA Data Security, Inc. 2. Their cryptography systems, especially RSA encryption. The RSA algorithm was first described in the paper:
- rta — road traffic accident
- rwa — Rwanda (international car registration)
- rya — a handwoven Scandinavian rug with a thick pile and usually a strong, colorful design.
- s a — without year or date
- saa — Systems Application Architecture
- sba — standard beam approach: a radar navigation system that gives lateral guidance to aircraft when landing
- sca — Single Connection Attach
- sda — SDA is a process for extracting asphaltenes (= molecular substances in crude oil) and resins.
- sea — Self Extracting Archive
- sfa — Sales Force Automation
- sha — Secure Hash Algorithm
- sia — Serial Interface Adaptor
- sja — Saint John's Ambulance (Brigade or Association)
- ska — a modern style of vocalized Jamaican popular music, which emerged in the 1950s as a blend of African-Jamaican folk music, calypso, and American rhythm and blues, notable for its shuffling, scratchlike tempo and jazzlike horn riffs on the offbeat.
- sna — Systems Network Architecture
- soa — 1. (architecture) service-oriented architecture. 2. (networking) start of authority.
- spa — a resort town in E Belgium, SE of Liège: famous mineral springs.
- sqa — Scottish Qualifications Agency
- sra — Señora
- ssa — Sub-Saharan Africa
- sta — Saint (female)
- sva — Student Volunteer Army
- tba — tba is sometimes written in announcements to indicate that something such as the place where something will happen or the people who will take part is not yet known and will be announced at a later date. tba is an abbreviation for 'to be announced'.
- tea — the dried and prepared leaves of a shrub, Camellia sinensis, from which a somewhat bitter, aromatic beverage is prepared by infusion in hot water.
- tga — Targa Graphics Adaptor
- tha — the fourth letter of the Arabic alphabet.
- tia — 1. (chat) Thanks in advance. 2. (body) Telecommunications Industry Association. 3. (software) The Internet Adapter. 4. (graphics, hardware) Television Interface Adaptor.
- tla — (jargon) (TLA) The canonical, self-describing acronym for the name of a species with which computing terminology is infested. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, DMU, FPU, TLA. This dictionary contains many TLAs. Sometimes used by extension for any confusing acronym. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four letters. One also hears of "ETLA" (Extended Three-Letter Acronym) being used to describe four-letter acronyms. The term "SFLA" (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym) has also been reported. See also YABA. The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin "What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in the 90s?" Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3 = 17,576.)
- tpa — Transient Program Area
- tva — Tennessee Valley Authority
- twa — a member of a Pygmy people of Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
- uda — Ulster Defence Association
- ufa — an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation in Europe. 55,430 sq. mi. (143,600 sq. km). Capital: Ufa.
- una — a female given name: from a Latin word meaning “one.”.
- usa — The USA is an abbreviation for the United States of America.
- uta — any of several iguanid lizards of the genus Uta, of the western U.S. and northern Mexico.
- uva — ultraviolet light with a relatively long wavelength, able to penetrate the deep layers of the skin.
- vba — Visual Basic for Applications
- vga — (hardware) Video Graphics Array (not "Adapter").
- via — by a route that touches or passes through; by way of: to fly to Japan via the North Pole.
- vka — Vintage Karting Association
- vla — very large array