DAU Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms

The DAU Glossary, also referred to as the Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms, reflects most acronyms, abbreviations, and terms commonly used in the systems acquisition process within the Department of Defense (DoD) and defense industries. It focuses on terms with generic DoD application but also includes some Service-unique terms. While the glossary identifies and highlights many terms, it is not all-inclusive, particularly regarding the military Services, defense agencies and other organizationally unique terms. The Glossary contains a listing of common abbreviations, acronyms and definitions of terms used throughout the DoD acquisition community, including terms that have commonality between U.S. and Allied acquisition programs. The Glossary is for use by students of DAU, and other working on defense acquisition matters, including congressional staffs, Pentagon and other headquarters (HQ) staffs, program managers and requirements managers of the DoD, and defense contractors.

Glossary Criteria

To improve communications and mutual understanding through the standardization of terminology, the following identifies guidance for inclusion as well as criteria for definition development in the DAU Glossary:

1. Follows established procedures outlined herein
2. Reflects terminology used throughout the DoD acquisition community
3. Broad DoD acquisition applicability
4. Terms are limited to generic DoD acquisition processes
5. Source document (e.g., DoDI 5000.75) must be approved (not a draft), identified, and cleared for public release
6. Written as a definition (stating a precise meaning of what it is) and not as a description (providing an account or image of how/why it works)
7. Must appear and be used in the content of an approved document (not just in its glossary)
8. Not self-defining (e.g., critical issue: An issue that is critical….)
9. Approved term with similar definition does not exist
10. Not Service- or functionality-specific unless commonly employed in DoD acquisition processes (technical terms may be included if/where policy deems term as significant to DoD acquisition and definitions are crafted using plain language)
11. Not to consist of/contain shortened word forms (abbreviations, acronyms, or initialisms)
12. Must be UNCLASSIFIED
13. Consistent with U.S. law, policies, regulations, and executive orders
14. No separate cross-reference entries (e.g., bundling: As defined in Subpart 2.101 of the FAR)
15. Merriam-Webster dictionary term is inadequate for DOD acquisition use
16. Noun terms should be in singular form