TO
Abbreviation with 4 meanings
| Stands for | Turnover |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 4 |
| Categories | Sports, Medical, Geography & Places |
| Also written | T.O. |
TO has four meanings. The most common are Turnover (basketball) and Telephone order (medical documentation); it can also stand for Toronto and Tonga.
Meanings of TO at a glance
| # | TO stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Turnover | Sports › Basketball |
| 2 | Telephone order | Medical › Medical Documentation |
| 3 | Toronto | Geography & Places › City and Neighborhood |
| 4 | Tonga | Geography & Places › Country Code |
1. Turnover
Sports · Basketball Abbreviations
Loss of possession without a shot attempt, through a bad pass, a steal, traveling, an offensive foul or a shot-clock violation. TO appears in box scores beside assists.
Example: He finished with 9 assists but also 7 TO in the loss.
Also written TOV on Basketball-Reference. Turnovers have been officially counted in the NBA since 1977-78. Assist-to-turnover ratio measures a ball handler's care with the ball. In many sports TO also means timeout, so context matters.
2. Telephone order
Medical · Medical Documentation Abbreviations
Order given by a prescriber over the phone to a licensed nurse or pharmacist, who enters it in the record and reads it back. It is common at night and in long-term care.
Example: TO Dr. Kim: acetaminophen 650 mg PO q6h PRN fever, read back.
Sound-alike drug names and numbers such as fifteen and fifty are a known risk, so staff repeat numbers digit by digit, for example "one-five". The order must be authenticated by the prescriber within the time required by policy. Many systems now let prescribers enter orders remotely, reducing telephone orders.
3. Toronto (T.O.)
Geography & Places · City and Neighborhood Abbreviations
Informal abbreviation for Toronto, Canada's largest city, with about 2.8 million residents and more than 6 million in the census metropolitan area. The CN Tower, completed in 1976, dominates the skyline.
Example: Ferries from downtown T.O. reach the Toronto Islands in about 15 minutes.
Toronto is also nicknamed the 6ix, popularized by the rapper Drake, after the original area code 416. YYZ, the airport code, is another nickname.
4. Tonga
Geography & Places · Country Code Abbreviations
Polynesian kingdom of about 170 islands with Nukuʻalofa as its capital and TON as its alpha-3 code, the only Pacific island nation never formally colonized. The 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption was the largest volcanic explosion recorded in decades.
Example: URL shorteners have used .to links, the domain of TO, because it reads like the word to.
Tonga became a British protected state in 1900 but kept its monarchy. The pa'anga trades as TOP.
Related abbreviations
More basketball abbreviations
- SF – Small forward
- SG – Shooting guard
- SPG – Steals per game
- STL – Steals
- TS% – True shooting percentage
- USG% – Usage rate
- VORP – Value over replacement player
- WS – Win shares
See all 52 basketball abbreviations →
More medical documentation abbreviations
- SOAP – Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan
- SOAPIE – Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Intervention, Evaluation
- SOB – Shortness of breath
- Sx – Symptoms
- TORB – Telephone order read back
- Tx – Treatment
- UTD – Up to date
- VO – Verbal order
See all 79 medical documentation abbreviations →
This entry is for general education and is not medical advice. Abbreviation use varies between institutions; always confirm in context.