Dr.
Abbreviation with 12 meanings
| Stands for | Doctor |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 12 |
| Categories | Writing & Everyday, Geography & Places, Medical, Business & Finance, Science & Engineering, Technology & Computing, Transportation & Travel, Units & Measurements |
| Also written | DR, Dr, dr |
Dr. has 12 meanings. The most common are Doctor (title and honorific) and Drive (address); it can also stand for Diabetic retinopathy, Dominican Republic, Debit, Delayed release and Demand response, plus 5 more listed below.
Meanings of Dr. at a glance
| # | Dr. stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Doctor | Writing & Everyday › Title and Honorific |
| 2 | Drive | Geography & Places › Address |
| 3 | Diabetic retinopathy | Medical › Ophthalmology & ENT |
| 4 | Dominican Republic | Geography & Places › Country Name |
| 5 | Debit | Business & Finance › Accounting |
| 6 | Delayed release | Medical › Pharmacy |
| 7 | Demand response | Science & Engineering › Energy |
| 8 | Disaster recovery | Technology & Computing › Cloud Computing |
| 9 | Dining room | Writing & Everyday › Classified Ad |
| 10 | Dead reckoning | Transportation & Travel › Maritime |
| 11 | Dram | Units & Measurements › US Customary and Imperial Unit |
| 12 | Domain Rating | Business & Finance › Marketing & Advertising |
1. Doctor
Writing & Everyday · Title and Honorific Abbreviations
Precedes the name of a person holding a doctoral degree such as a Ph.D., or a medical, dental or veterinary qualification. It is used in address, correspondence, introductions and on prescriptions and business cards.
Example: Dr. Patel will see you now; please bring your insurance card to the front desk.
Dr. replaces Mr. or Ms., and pairing it with a degree after the name, as in "Dr. Jane Lee, Ph.D.," is redundant. In Britain, surgeons traditionally revert to Mr., Mrs. or Ms. after qualifying with a surgical college, a custom dating from when surgeons trained by apprenticeship rather than at university. AP style generally reserves Dr. for medical, dental and veterinary doctors. British style omits the period.
2. Drive (Dr)
Geography & Places · Address Abbreviations
Default name for residential streets in many postwar American subdivisions, originally meaning a scenic road for pleasure driving in a carriage. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills are famous examples.
Example: Mail the invitation to 87 Oak Hollow Dr, Austin, TX 78759.
Abbreviated DR by USPS, it looks just like Dr. for doctor, so address software relies on its position after the street name. Drive names became fashionable in the 20th century as car ownership spread to the suburbs.
3. Diabetic retinopathy (DR)
Medical · Ophthalmology & ENT Abbreviations
Damage to the retinal blood vessels caused by diabetes, the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults in many countries. It progresses from nonproliferative changes such as microaneurysms and hemorrhages to proliferative disease with abnormal new vessels.
Example: Moderate NPDR OU without macular edema; annual dilated exam, tighten glucose and BP control.
People with type 2 diabetes need a dilated eye exam at diagnosis and people with type 1 within five years, then usually yearly. In 2018 the FDA authorized IDx-DR, the first autonomous artificial intelligence system to detect diabetic retinopathy without a clinician interpreting the images. In pharmacy DR means delayed release.
4. Dominican Republic (DR)
Geography & Places · Country Name Abbreviations
Caribbean country occupying the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti. Santo Domingo, founded in 1496, is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas, and the country is a major source of Major League Baseball players.
Example: Half the team's infielders grew up playing ball in the DR.
Its ISO codes are DO and DOM, and the domain is .do. Americans often say the DR in conversation and travel writing. Do not confuse it with Dominica, a separate island nation whose ISO code is DM.
5. Debit (Dr)
Business & Finance · Accounting Abbreviations
Entry on the left side of an account in double-entry bookkeeping, which increases asset and expense accounts and decreases liability, equity and revenue accounts. Every transaction has at least one debit and one credit of equal total value.
Example: Dr Cash 5,000, Cr Sales revenue 5,000, to record the day's takings.
The abbreviation is usually traced to "debtor," and Cr to "creditor," reflecting early bookkeeping usage. On bank statements, a debit reduces the account holder's balance, which confuses many readers because the bank records customer deposits as its own liabilities. With a period, Dr. means doctor.
6. Delayed release (DR)
Medical · Pharmacy Abbreviations
Formulation designed so the drug is not released until after it passes the stomach, usually because the drug is destroyed by acid or irritates the stomach. Proton pump inhibitors, duloxetine, divalproex and mesalamine are common DR products.
Example: Pantoprazole DR 40 mg tab daily before breakfast; swallow whole.
Delayed release is not the same as extended release: a DR product may release all its drug quickly once it reaches the intestine. Enteric coating is the most common method. Crushing a DR tablet exposes the drug to stomach acid and may irritate the stomach or inactivate the drug.
7. Demand response (DR)
Science & Engineering · Energy Abbreviations
Programs that pay or reward electricity customers for reducing or shifting their use when the grid is stressed or prices are high, for example by adjusting thermostats, pausing industrial processes or delaying EV charging. DR acts like a power plant in reverse.
Example: The factory earns DR payments for idling its furnaces during summer grid emergencies.
Utilities often control enrolled smart thermostats directly for short periods. Large industrial users such as bitcoin miners have been paid to curtail during Texas grid emergencies. In medicine and everyday titles DR is unrelated, as in doctor or Dominican Republic.
8. Disaster recovery (DR)
Technology & Computing · Cloud Computing Abbreviations
The policies, tools and procedures for restoring IT systems and data after a major disruption such as a data center outage, natural disaster, cyberattack or accidental deletion.
Example: The annual DR test failed over the whole stack to the Oregon region in 38 minutes.
Strategies range from backup and restore through pilot light and warm standby to multi-site active-active, trading cost against recovery speed. DR forms part of broader business continuity planning. Cloud regions made geographically separate recovery sites affordable for smaller companies. As a title, Dr. abbreviates doctor.
9. Dining room (DR)
Writing & Everyday · Classified Ad Abbreviations · also used in business
Marks a separate room for eating on floor plans and in property listings, as in "formal DR" or "LR/DR combo."
Example: Formal DR seats ten and connects to the kitchen through a butler's pantry.
Formal dining rooms are less common in newer homes, many of which have an open kitchen and dining area instead. British listings may describe a "kitchen-diner." The same letters also mean doctor (Dr.) and, in street addresses, drive (Dr).
10. Dead reckoning (DR)
Transportation & Travel · Maritime Abbreviations
Navigation method that estimates a vessel's or aircraft's current position from a known starting point using course, speed and elapsed time, without external fixes. DR remains the backup when GPS fails.
Example: With GPS down, the navigator plotted a DR position every hour on the paper chart.
The phrase is often said to come from "deduced reckoning," abbreviated "ded.," though that origin is disputed. Columbus and other early navigators relied heavily on it. Modern inertial navigation systems are a high-tech form of dead reckoning.
11. Dram (dr)
Units & Measurements · US Customary and Imperial Unit Abbreviations
A small weight or volume unit with several definitions: the avoirdupois dram is 1/16 ounce (about 1.77 g), the apothecaries' dram 1/8 troy ounce (about 3.89 g), and the fluid dram 1/8 fluid ounce (about 3.7 mL). US pharmacy pill vials are still sized in drams.
Example: Dispense in a 20 dr amber vial with a child-resistant cap.
Also spelled drachm in British usage, from Greek drachme, a coin and weight. Shotgun shell boxes list "dram equivalent", a legacy comparison to black-powder charges. In Scotland "a wee dram" means a small drink of whisky, not a precise amount.
12. Domain Rating (DR)
Business & Finance · Marketing & Advertising Abbreviations
Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score estimating the strength of a website's backlink profile relative to all other sites in its index, widely used in link-building outreach and competitor analysis.
Example: The guest post went live on a DR 72 industry blog.
Like Moz's Domain Authority, it is not a Google ranking factor.
Related abbreviations
More title and honorific abbreviations
- Dep. – Deputy
- Det. – Detective
- DI – Detective Inspector
- Dir. – Director
- DS – Detective Sergeant
- Esq. – Esquire
- Gov. – Governor
- H.E. – His or Her Excellency
See all 54 title and honorific abbreviations →
More address abbreviations
- Ctr – Center
- Cv – Cove
- dept. – Department
- Dl – Dale
- Est – Estate
- Expy – Expressway
- ext. – Extension
- Fl – Floor
See all 118 address abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.