AO, aO, Ao, or ao may refer to:

Arts and entertainment

* Adults Only, an entertainment rating * AO Music (AOmusic), a world-music fusion group consisting of

Jay Oliver Jay Russell Oliver (born April 26, 1959) is an American jazz musician (piano, piano keyboard, keyboards and music synthesizer, synths), music composer, composer, record producer, programmer and engineer. He began his professional music career at t ...

Miriam Stockley Miriam Arlene Stockley (born 15 April 1962) is a British singer. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and her work is influenced by the African music of her home country. Her distinctive '' vocalise'' style gained international acclaim whe ...

and others * Ao: The Last Hunter, a 2010 prehistoric drama movie * '' Eureka Seven: AO'', Japanese mecha anime television series *

Lord Ao ''Forgotten Realms'' is a campaign setting for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a ...

, a fictional deity in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' universe *

Annoying Orange ''Annoying Orange'' is an American live-action/animated comedy web series created by Dane Boedigheimer (known online as DaneBoe). The series follows an anthropomorphic orange who annoys fruits, vegetables, and various other objects by telling ...

, an American comedy web series

Businesses and organizations

* AO (originally American Optical Company) eyeglass lenses, a brand now merged with Carl Zeiss Vision *

AO Foundation The AO Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the care of patients with musculoskeletal injuries or pathologies and their sequelae through research, development, and education of surgeons and operating room personnel. The AO ...

(originally ), a non-profit organisation dedicated to the treatment of trauma and disorders of the musculoskeletal system *

AO World AO World is an electrical retailer based in Bolton, England. It operates in the United Kingdom (ao.com), and previously operated in Germany (ao.de) and the Netherlands (ao.nl), specialising in household appliances and electricals. It is listed o ...

, a UK retailer of household appliances trading under the brand name ao.com * or (), a type of Russian corporate entity; see open joint-stock company *

Athletics Ontario Athletics Ontario is the governing body of track and field in Ontario, Canada. Athletics Ontario was founded in 1974 under the name Ontario Track and Field Association to replace several regional bodies under Athletics Canada. In 2008 its name was f ...

, formally Ontario Track and Field Association (OTAF) *

Australian Airlines Australian Airlines was a full-service airline based in Australia, servicing Australian and Asian destinations between 2002 and 2006. It was an all-economy, full-service international leisure carrier, and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Qan ...

(IATA code AO)

Government and politics

Administrative Office of the United States Courts The Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AO) is the administrative agency of the United States federal court system, established in 1939. The central support entity for the federal judicial branch, the AO provides a wide range of l ...

* Administrative Officer, a grade within the United Kingdom's Civil Service *

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

(ISO code and NATO country code AO) * Autonomous oblast, type of Russian administrative division *

Autonomous okrug Autonomous okrugs ( rus, автономный округ, ''avtonomnyy okrug''; more correctly referred to as "autonomous districts" or "autonomous areas") are a type of federal subject of the Russian Federation and simultaneously an administrati ...

, type of Russian administrative division * NSDAP/AO, Foreign Organization branch of the Nazi Party * Officer of the Order of Australia, postnominal AO

Military

Area of operations In U.S. armed forces parlance, an area of operations (AO) is an operational area defined by the force commander for land, air, and naval forces conduct of combat and non-combat activities. Areas of operations do not typically encompass the entire ...

, a U.S. military term * AO, a U.S. Navy hull classification symbol for an oiler * AO-, the prefix for several firearms * Aviation Ordnanceman, a United States Navy occupational rating

Philosophy and religion

* Alpha and Omega (abbreviation) *

Ao (mythology) Ao (''daylight'') is one of the primal deities who are the unborn forces of nature in Māori mythology. Ao is the personification of light, clouds, and the ordinary world, as opposed to darkness () and the underworld. He is spoken of under man ...

, a deity in Māori mythology *

Ao (turtle) Ao ( <

Old Chinese

(

, a creature in Chinese mythology * Ao, a type of Easter Island wood carving

Science and technology

.ao .ao is the Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Angola. It was originally administered by the college of engineering of the University of Agostinho Neto before being redelegated to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Informa ...

, top-level Internet domain code for Angola *

Adaptive optics Adaptive optics (AO) is a technology used to improve the performance of optical systems by reducing the effect of incoming wavefront distortions by deforming a mirror in order to compensate for the distortion. It is used in astronomical tele ...

, an astronomical imaging technology *

Ambient occlusion In 3D computer graphics, modeling, and animation, ambient occlusion is a shading and rendering technique used to calculate how exposed each point in a scene is to ambient lighting. For example, the interior of a tube is typically more occluded ...

, a shading method in computer graphics * AMSAT-OSCAR, a satellite naming convention *

Applied Optics ''Applied Optics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by The Optical Society three times a month. It was established in 1962 with John N. Howard as founding editor-in-chief. The journal covers all aspects of optics, photonics, imagin ...

, scientific journal published by the Optical Society of America (OSA) *

Arctic oscillation The Arctic oscillation (AO) or Northern Annular Mode/Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode (NAM) is a weather phenomenon at the Arctic pole north of 20 degrees latitude. It is an important mode of climate variability for the Northern Hemisphere. The s ...

, a climate pattern *

Atomic orbital In atomic theory and quantum mechanics, an atomic orbital is a function describing the location and wave-like behavior of an electron in an atom. This function can be used to calculate the probability of finding any electron of an atom in an ...

, in physics and chemistry * Ao, the

atomic symbol Chemical symbols are the abbreviations used in chemistry for chemical elements, functional groups and chemical compounds. Element symbols for chemical elements normally consist of one or two letters from the Latin alphabet and are written with th ...

for the misidentified

chemical element A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...

Ausenium Ausenium ( atomic symbol Ao) was the name assigned to the element with atomic number 93, now known as neptunium. It was named after a Greek name of Italy, Ausonia. The same team assigned the name hesperium to element 94, after Hesperia, a poeti ...

Surnames and initials

* Ao (surname) (), a Chinese surname *

Ou (surname) Ou is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surnames and , which share a common origin with the compound surname Ouyang (), from the ruling family of the State of Yue during the Spring and Autumn period. They are commonly romanized as Au or Ao ...

(/ and /), romanized as Ao in Cantonese *

Aaron Owens Aaron Owens (born March 20, 1974), better known by his nickname "AO", is an American streetball player from North Philadelphia. In 2013, Owens participated in the Ball4Real World Tour. He was on the AND1 Mixtape Tour from its creation until 200 ...

(born 1976), American streetball player

Other uses

* Alphabetically ordered * Ao (color) *

Ao languages The Ao or Central Naga languages are a small family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by various Naga peoples of Nagaland in northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are conse ...

Ao Naga The Ao Nagas are a major Naga ethnic group native to Mokokchung District of Nagaland, Northeast India. Their main territory is from Tsüla (Dikhu) Valley in the east to Tsürang (Disai) Valley in the west in Mokokchung District. The Ao Nagas ...

, an Indian ethnic group * or , meaning extraordinary professor ( academic rank in Germany) * Australian Open, an annual tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia * A, an abbreviation of "Anno", meaning "In the year" (as in

Anno Domini The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used to label or number years in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means 'in the year of the Lord', but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", ...

)