Isa.
Abbreviation with 4 meanings
| Stands for | Isaiah |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 4 |
| Categories | Religion, Business & Finance, Technology & Computing |
| Also written | ISA |
Isa. has four meanings. The most common are Isaiah (Bible book) and Individual Savings Account (personal finance); it can also stand for Instruction set architecture and Industry Standard Architecture.
Meanings of Isa. at a glance
| # | Isa. stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isaiah | Religion › Bible Book |
| 2 | Individual Savings Account | Business & Finance › Personal Finance |
| 3 | Instruction set architecture | Technology & Computing › Computer Hardware |
| 4 | Industry Standard Architecture | Technology & Computing › Computer Hardware |
1. Isaiah
Religion · Bible Book Abbreviations
Prophetic book of 66 chapters attributed to Isaiah of Jerusalem, active in the eighth century BC, containing prophecies of judgment and restoration that Christians read as foretelling Jesus, including "a virgin shall conceive" (7:14) and the Suffering Servant of chapter 53.
Example: Handel's Messiah opens with "Comfort ye my people" from Isa. 40.
SBL writes Isa, and short forms use Is. Most scholars divide the book into First, Second (Deutero-) and Third Isaiah (chapters 1–39, 40–55 and 56–66). A complete Isaiah scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls dates to about the second century BC.
2. Individual Savings Account (ISA)
Business & Finance · Personal Finance Abbreviations
UK tax-free wrapper for cash savings and investments: interest, dividends and capital gains inside an ISA are free of UK tax, and withdrawals need not be reported. Each adult resident can put up to £20,000 per tax year across all of their ISAs combined.
Example: I've already used £15,000 of my ISA allowance, so I can add only £5,000 more before April 5.
Introduced in April 1999 to replace PEPs and TESSAs. Types include the cash ISA, stocks and shares ISA, Innovative Finance ISA, Lifetime ISA and the Junior ISA for children. Unused allowance cannot be carried into the next tax year. From April 2027, savers under 65 may put no more than £12,000 of the allowance into cash ISAs. Most Britons pronounce it "EYE-suh."
3. Instruction set architecture (ISA)
Technology & Computing · Computer Hardware Abbreviations
Specification of the instructions, registers, data types and memory model that a processor family understands, forming the contract between hardware and software. Programs compiled for one ISA, such as x86-64, will not run natively on another, such as Arm64.
Example: Docker images must be built for each ISA, so we publish both amd64 and arm64 versions.
Major ISAs today are x86-64 (Intel and AMD), Arm (AArch64) and RISC-V. Different chips can share an ISA while differing greatly in internal design, called the microarchitecture: AMD's Zen and Intel's Core both implement x86-64. Apple's Rosetta 2 translates x86 apps so they run on its Arm-based Macs. In PC history, ISA also names the IBM PC expansion bus.
4. Industry Standard Architecture (ISA)
Technology & Computing · Computer Hardware Abbreviations
Expansion bus of the original IBM PC (8-bit, 1981) and PC/AT (16-bit, 1984), used for sound cards, modems and network cards until the late 1990s. Configuring ISA cards often meant setting IRQ and DMA jumpers by hand.
Example: To get sound in old DOS games, set the ISA Sound Blaster to IRQ 5, DMA 1.
The ISA name was coined in 1988 by a group of PC makers promoting the competing EISA bus, to describe IBM's design after IBM moved to its proprietary Micro Channel. The 16-bit bus ran at about 8 MHz. Plug and Play ISA, launched in the mid-1990s, automated resource setup. In processor design, ISA means instruction set architecture.
Related abbreviations
More Bible book abbreviations
- Hab. – Habakkuk
- Hag. – Haggai
- Heb. – Hebrews
- Hos. – Hosea
- Jas. – James
- Jb – Job
- Jdt. – Judith
- Jer. – Jeremiah
See all 77 Bible book abbreviations →