CD
Abbreviation with 14 meanings
| Stands for | Compact Disc |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 14 |
| Categories | Technology & Computing, Medical, Business & Finance, Texting & Internet Slang, Geography & Places, Units & Measurements, Science & Engineering |
| Also written | Cd, cd |
CD has 14 meanings. The most common are Compact Disc (consumer electronics) and Crohn's disease (gastroenterology); it can also stand for Certificate of deposit, Change directory, Closing Disclosure, Cooldown and Celiac disease, plus 7 more listed below.
Meanings of CD at a glance
| # | CD stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compact Disc | Technology & Computing › Consumer Electronics |
| 2 | Crohn's disease | Medical › Gastroenterology |
| 3 | Certificate of deposit | Business & Finance › Banking |
| 4 | Change directory | Technology & Computing › Computer |
| 5 | Closing Disclosure | Business & Finance › Real Estate & Mortgage |
| 6 | Cooldown | Texting & Internet Slang › Gaming Slang |
| 7 | Celiac disease | Medical › Gastroenterology |
| 8 | Conduct disorder | Medical › Mental Health & Psychiatry |
| 9 | Democratic Republic of the Congo | Geography & Places › Country Code |
| 10 | Candela | Units & Measurements › Metric and SI Unit |
| 11 | Cadmium | Science & Engineering › Chemical Element |
| 12 | Continuous delivery | Technology & Computing › Programming |
| 13 | Continuous deployment | Technology & Computing › Programming |
| 14 | Controlled delivery | Medical › Pharmacy |
1. Compact Disc
Technology & Computing · Consumer Electronics Abbreviations
Optical disc format developed by Philips and Sony for digital audio, holding up to 74 to 80 minutes of music, and later adapted for computer data. Audio CDs store uncompressed 16-bit, 44.1 kHz stereo sound.
Example: I still buy the CD at concerts because it supports the band directly.
Sony's CDP-101 player went on sale in Japan in October 1982, and Billy Joel's 52nd Street was the first album released on CD there. Legend holds that the 74-minute capacity was chosen to fit Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. CD sales peaked around 2000 and fell with downloads and streaming; in 2022 vinyl records outsold CDs by units in the US for the first time since 1987. In finance, CD means certificate of deposit.
2. Crohn's disease
Medical · Gastroenterology Abbreviations
Chronic IBD that can affect any part of the digestive tract from mouth to anus, most often the terminal ileum and colon, with patchy "skip lesions" and full-thickness inflammation. Complications include strictures, fistulas and abscesses, and treatment commonly uses biologics such as infliximab, adalimumab, ustekinumab or risankizumab.
Example: Ileocolonic CD with perianal fistula; MRI pelvis ordered, continue adalimumab 40 mg every other week.
Named after Burrill B. Crohn, who described "regional ileitis" with Ginzburg and Oppenheimer in 1932; AMA style writes "Crohn disease" without the possessive. In other GI notes CD may mean celiac disease, and in psychiatry it denotes conduct disorder, so check the specialty. Smoking raises the risk of Crohn's and worsens its course, whereas it appears protective in ulcerative colitis.
3. Certificate of deposit
Business & Finance · Banking Abbreviations
Bank or credit union savings product that pays a fixed interest rate for a fixed term, such as 6 months or 5 years, in exchange for leaving the money untouched until maturity. Withdrawing early usually triggers a penalty, often several months' interest.
Example: She opened a 12-month CD paying 4.1 percent to park her house down payment.
In the US, CDs at FDIC-insured banks are protected up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, per ownership category, and NCUA insurance offers the same at credit unions. Brokered CDs, bought through brokerage accounts, can be sold before maturity on a secondary market. Jumbo CDs typically require $100,000 or more. In India and the UK, similar products are called fixed deposits or fixed-term deposits.
4. Change directory (cd)
Technology & Computing · Computer Abbreviations
Shell command that moves the working directory to another folder, available in Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell, macOS Terminal and Linux shells. Typing cd .. moves up one level.
Example: Run cd Documents/projects, then type ls to see what's inside.
Written in lowercase because commands are case-sensitive on Unix-like systems. In Unix shells, cd with no argument returns to the home directory and "cd -" returns to the previous one. In Windows CMD, switching to another drive needs the /d switch or simply typing the drive letter, as in D:. Outside the shell, CD usually means compact disc.
5. Closing Disclosure
Business & Finance · Real Estate & Mortgage Abbreviations
Five-page standardized form a lender must give a mortgage borrower at least three business days before closing, listing the final loan terms, interest rate, monthly payment, closing costs and cash needed to close.
Example: Compare the CD line by line with your Loan Estimate before you sign anything.
Introduced in October 2015 under the TRID rule, replacing the HUD-1 Settlement Statement and final Truth in Lending disclosure. Certain changes, such as a higher APR beyond tolerance or a new prepayment penalty, trigger a new three-day waiting period. In banking, CD usually means certificate of deposit.
6. Cooldown
Texting & Internet Slang · Gaming Slang Abbreviations
Waiting time before an ability, item or spell can be used again after activation, shown as a timer on its icon. "On CD" means unavailable; "off CD" means ready.
Example: My ult is on CD, give me thirty seconds before we engage.
Tracking enemy cooldowns, such as a key defensive spell, is a core skill in MOBAs and MMORPGs, and players often call out "flash is down" to exploit them. "CDR" stands for cooldown reduction. In music and computing CD means compact disc, a context game chat rules out.
7. Celiac disease
Medical · Gastroenterology Abbreviations
Autoimmune enteropathy triggered by dietary gluten in genetically susceptible people carrying HLA-DQ2 or DQ8, causing villous atrophy of the small intestine. Screening uses tissue transglutaminase IgA antibodies, confirmed by duodenal biopsy; the only treatment is a strict lifelong gluten-free diet.
Example: Iron-deficiency anemia with positive tTG-IgA; duodenal biopsies consistent with CD, Marsh 3b.
Research papers often write CeD to avoid confusion with Crohn's disease, which usually owns plain CD in GI notes. The British spelling is coeliac disease. Testing should be done while the patient is still eating gluten, because antibodies and biopsy changes fade on a gluten-free diet. Prevalence is about 1 percent in many Western populations, and the Marsh-Oberhuber scale grades the biopsy findings.
8. Conduct disorder
Medical · Mental Health & Psychiatry Abbreviations
Childhood or adolescent disorder involving a repetitive pattern of violating others' rights or major age-appropriate rules, including aggression toward people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, and serious rule violations such as running away or truancy.
Example: CD, childhood-onset type, with limited prosocial emotions; multisystemic therapy referral.
Subtypes are distinguished by onset before or after age 10, and the specifier "with limited prosocial emotions" identifies callous-unemotional traits. Childhood-onset CD is a risk factor for antisocial personality disorder in adulthood. Family-based treatments such as multisystemic therapy have the best evidence. In gastroenterology CD means Crohn's disease.
9. Democratic Republic of the Congo
Geography & Places · Country Code Abbreviations
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as Zaire (code ZR) from 1971 to 1997, is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa by area. Kinshasa is the capital and COD the alpha-3 code.
Example: Cobalt shipments from CD are tracked under new due-diligence rules.
News writers use DRC or DR Congo. The neighboring Republic of the Congo is CG. CD also means compact disc and certificate of deposit.
10. Candela (cd)
Units & Measurements · Metric and SI Unit Abbreviations
The SI base unit of luminous intensity, measuring how bright a light source appears to the human eye in a particular direction. An ordinary wax candle emits roughly 1 cd, and flashlight specifications often give peak beam intensity in candela.
Example: The tactical flashlight is rated at 20,000 cd peak beam intensity.
The candela is defined by fixing the luminous efficacy of green light at 540 × 10^12 hertz at exactly 683 lumens per watt. Screen brightness is measured in cd/m², a unit nicknamed the nit; HDR televisions advertise 1,000 cd/m² or more. It replaced older units such as the candlepower, still seen on spotlight packaging.
11. Cadmium (Cd)
Science & Engineering · Chemical Element Abbreviations
Cadmium (element 48) is a soft, toxic heavy metal once common in rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, bright yellow and red artists' pigments, and corrosion-resistant plating. It is now restricted in consumer electronics in many countries, while cadmium telluride is used in thin-film solar panels.
Example: Under RoHS, homogeneous materials may contain no more than 0.01% Cd by weight.
Friedrich Stromeyer discovered cadmium in 1817 as an impurity in zinc carbonate; the name comes from Latin cadmia, an old name for zinc ores, derived from Greek kadmeia. Chronic cadmium poisoning from mining wastewater caused itai-itai ("it hurts, it hurts") disease in Japan's Toyama Prefecture. Cadmium accumulates in the kidneys and stays in the body for decades.
12. Continuous delivery
Technology & Computing · Programming Abbreviations
A practice in which every change that passes the automated pipeline is kept in a releasable state and can go to production at any time, usually after a manual approval or button press for the final release.
Example: We practice CD: every green build is a release candidate, and product decides when to ship it.
Popularized by Jez Humble and David Farley's 2010 book "Continuous Delivery". The key difference from continuous deployment is the human decision before production. Regulated industries often prefer it because the approval step leaves an audit trail.
13. Continuous deployment
Technology & Computing · Programming Abbreviations
A practice in which every change that passes automated tests is released to production automatically, with no human approval step. Teams rely on feature flags, canary releases and fast rollback to keep it safe.
Example: With CD enabled, the fix went live eleven minutes after the PR was merged.
Requires very strong test coverage and monitoring, since nobody reviews each release before users see it; companies practicing it may deploy dozens of times a day. In conversation "CD" can mean either this or continuous delivery, so it is worth asking whether production releases are automatic. Outside software, CD is best known as the compact disc.
14. Controlled delivery
Medical · Pharmacy Abbreviations
Release suffix used mainly for once-daily diltiazem capsules (Cardizem CD and its generics), which contain beads that release drug over 24 hours.
Example: Diltiazem CD 240 mg PO daily for rate control of atrial fibrillation.
Different 24-hour diltiazem products (CD, LA, XR, XT) use different bead and tablet technologies and are not all rated therapeutically equivalent by the FDA, so pharmacists match the exact product. CD also abbreviates Crohn disease, celiac disease and cluster of differentiation in other medical contexts.
Related abbreviations
More consumer electronics abbreviations
- BD – Blu-ray Disc
- BLE – Bluetooth Low Energy
- BT – Bluetooth
- CCTV – Closed-circuit television
- CEC – Consumer Electronics Control
- CES – Consumer Electronics Show
- CRT – Cathode-ray tube
- DAC – Digital-to-analog converter
See all 104 consumer electronics abbreviations →
More gastroenterology abbreviations
- AP – Acute pancreatitis
- APC – Argon plasma coagulation
- BE – Barrett's esophagus
- BRBPR – Bright red blood per rectum
- CHS – Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome
- CP – Chronic pancreatitis
- CRC – Colorectal cancer
- CTC – Computed tomographic colonography
See all 85 gastroenterology abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.