What does this mean?
Confused by a word, number, label or charge? Get a quick plain-English explanation, why it matters, and what you may need to do next.
Try:
Money
- What is APR?APR stands for annual percentage rate.
- What is APY?APY stands for annual percentage yield.
- What is compound interest?Compound interest is interest earned on your original money and also on the interest it has already earned.
- What is amortization?Amortization is paying off a loan in regular, equal payments over time.
- What is credit utilization?Credit utilization is the share of your available revolving credit that you are using.
- What is an escrow account?An escrow account, sometimes called an impound account, is set up by your mortgage lender to pay certain property-related expenses such as property taxes and insurance premiums.
- What is a credit report?A credit report is a statement that has information about your credit activity and current credit situation, such as your loan paying history and the status of your credit accounts.
- What does FDIC insured mean?FDIC insured means a bank's deposits are covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
- What is negative equity on a car?Negative equity means you owe more on your car loan than the vehicle is worth.
Cars & driving
- What does MPG mean?MPG means miles per gallon: how many miles a vehicle can travel on one gallon of fuel.
- What does octane mean?Octane rating is a measure of a fuel's ability to resist knocking or pinging, which happens when the air and fuel mixture ignites too early in the engine.
- What is a hybrid car?A hybrid electric vehicle combines a gasoline engine with an electric motor.
- What is a plug-in hybrid?A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid with a high-capacity battery that can be charged by plugging it into an outlet or charging station.
- What is the difference between a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid?Both combine a gasoline engine with an electric motor.
- What is regenerative braking?Regenerative braking recaptures energy that would normally be lost when a vehicle slows or coasts.
Home
- What does MERV 13 mean?MERV is a rating of how well an air filter captures particles between 0.3 and 10 microns, on a scale from 1 to 16.
Shopping
- What is unit price?Unit price is the price of one standard unit of a product, such as one ounce, one pound or one sheet.
For developers
- What is Base64?Base64 writes any data, including bytes that are not printable, using only 64 ordinary characters: A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, plus and slash.
- What is a UUID?A UUID (universally unique identifier) is a 128-bit label written as 32 hexadecimal characters in five groups, like 123e4567-e89b-42d3-a456-426614174000.
- What is a Unix timestamp?A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds since midnight (12:00:00 AM) UTC on 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds.
Design
- What is a hex color?A hex color is a code such as #FF5A1F that describes a color by how much red, green and blue light it contains.
Everyday life
- What does AQI mean?AQI stands for Air Quality Index, a scale from 0 to 500 that reports how clean or polluted the air is.
Health & wellness
- What does BMI mean?BMI stands for body mass index.
- What does %DV mean on a nutrition label?%DV is the percent of the Daily Value that one serving of the food gives you for a nutrient.
- What are added sugars?Added sugars are sugars added to a food during processing, such as sucrose or dextrose, plus sugar and sweeteners sold on their own, syrups and honey, and sugar from concentrated fruit or vegetable juice.
- What does serving size mean on a food label?Serving size is the amount the label uses for every number it prints.
- What is sodium, and how is it different from salt?Sodium is one of the two minerals in table salt, which is sodium chloride.
- What is a resting heart rate?A resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in a minute while you are at rest.
- How much sleep do adults need?The CDC lists 7 or more hours for adults 18 to 60, 7 to 9 hours for adults 61 to 64, and 7 to 8 hours for adults 65 and older.
- How much caffeine is too much?The FDA cites 400 milligrams a day, about two to three 12-ounce cups of coffee, as an amount not generally associated with negative effects for most healthy adults.
- How long does caffeine last in your body?MedlinePlus says caffeine reaches its peak level in your blood within one hour, and you may continue to feel its effects for four to six hours.
- How much water do I need each day?It depends on the person.
- What is the protein RDA?The protein RDA for adults is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
- How much fiber is the Daily Value?The FDA Daily Value for dietary fiber is 28 grams, based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
- Is walking exercise?By the CDC's own measure, yes: walking at 3.0 mph is 3.5 METs in the U.S.