NS as an abbreviation can mean:

Arts and entertainment

Gaming

* ''Natural Selection'' (video game), a mod for the game ''Half-Life'' * '' NetStorm: Islands At War'', a real-time strategy game published in 1997 by Activision *

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

, a hybrid video game console and handheld. * ''

NationStates ''NationStates'' (formerly ''Jennifer Government: NationStates'') is a multiplayer government simulation browser game created and developed by Max Barry. Based loosely on Barry's novel '' Jennifer Government'', the game launched on 13 Novembe ...

'', a web-based simulation game

Literature

* '' New Spring'' (known to fans as "NS"), a 1999 anthology edited by Robert Silverberg and derivative 2004 novella by Robert Jordan * NS-series robots from the book ''

I, Robot ''I, Robot'' is a fixup collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines '' Super Science Stories'' and ''Astounding Science Fiction'' between 1940 and 1950 ...

Companies

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

(also known as "Natsemi"), an American integrated circuit design and manufacturing company *

Nederlandse Spoorwegen (, , NS ) is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. It is a Dutch state-owned company founded in 1938. The rail infrastructure is maintained by network manager ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003. Freight operato ...

, the main public transport railway company in the Netherlands *

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

, a major Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation *

Norfolk Southern Railway (1942–1982) The Norfolk Southern Railway was the final name of a railroad that ran from Norfolk, Virginia, southwest and west to Charlotte, North Carolina. It was acquired by the Southern Railway (U.S.), Southern Railway in 1974, which merged with the Norfo ...

, the final name of a railroad running in Virginia and North Carolina before its acquisition by the Southern Railway in 1974

Government and politics

* ''

Nasjonal Samling The Nasjonal Samling (, NS; ) was a Norway, Norwegian far-right politics, far-right political party active from 1933 to 1945. It was the only legal party of Norway from 1942 to 1945. It was founded by former minister of defence Vidkun Quisling a ...

'', a 1930s Norwegian national socialist political party *

National Security Department The National Security Department (noted as NS) is the Hong Kong Police Force national security law enforcement agency established by the Hong Kong National Security Law in 2020. The National Security Department is led by a Deputy Commissioner of ...

(noted as NS), a law enforcement agency in Hong Kong *

National service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

, a name for the conscription system of some militaries * National Socialism or

Nazism Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During Hitler's rise to power, it was fre ...

, the ideology held by, among other political parties, the National Socialist German Workers Party *

New Serbia (political party) New Serbia (, NS) is a right-wing political party in Serbia. It was established in 1998 by a group of dissidents led by Velimir Ilić from the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). History After leaving SPO, Velimir Ilić became a member of SPO-Toge ...

(''Nova Srbija''), a political party in Serbia *

People's Party (Serbia, 2017) The People's Party (, abbr. Narodna) is a conservative List of political parties in Serbia, political party in Serbia. It has been led by Vladimir Gajić since 2024. Narodna was formed in October 2017 after Vuk Jeremić re-organised the Peop ...

(''Narodna stranka''), a political party in Serbia * New Slovenia (also known as ''Nova Slovenija - Krscanski Ljudska Stranka''), a right-of-centre political party in Slovenia *

People's Party (Montenegro) The People's Party (, abbreviated НС/NS) was a conservative political party in Montenegro. History The party was established in 1990, after a multi-party system was introduced in Montenegro, and was named after the historical People's Party. ...

(''Narodna Stranka''), a political party in the Republic of Montenegro * National Alliance (Lithuania) (''Nacionalinis susivienijimas''), a political party in Lithuania

Places

Negeri Sembilan Negeri Sembilan (, Negeri Sembilan Malay: ''Nogoghi Sombilan'', ''Nismilan''), historically spelled as Negri Sembilan, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia which lies on the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, wes ...

, one of the fourteen states in Malaysia *

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; #Name, see below for other names) is the List of cities in Serbia, second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannoni ...

, a city in Serbia (license plate code) *

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, as the official Canadian postal abbreviation for the province

Science and technology

Biology and medicine

Nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

, the system of neurons that coordinates the actions of an organism *

Normal saline Saline (also known as saline solution) is a mixture of sodium chloride (salt) and water. It has a number of uses in medicine including cleaning wounds, removal and storage of contact lenses, and help with dry eyes. By intravenous therapy, inje ...

, a solution of sodium chloride used in intravenous drips

Computing

Name server A name server is a computer application that implements a network service for providing responses to queries against a directory service. It translates an often humanly meaningful, text-based identifier to a system-internal, often numeric identi ...

, a computer server that implements a name service protocol **

NS record This list of DNS record types is an overview of resource records (RRs) permissible in zone files of the Domain Name System (DNS). It also contains pseudo-RRs. Resource records Other types and pseudo-RRs Other types of records simply provide som ...

, a DNS record type *

Namespace In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified. Namespaces ...

, an abstract container used in computing * Neighbor Solicitation, part of IPv6's

Neighbor Discovery Protocol The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP), or simply Neighbor Discovery (ND), is a protocol of the Internet protocol suite used with Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). It operates at the internet layer of the Internet model, and is responsible for ...

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

, an object-oriented, multitasking operating system by NeXT, as well as a prefix for certain system-provided classes in the operating system, such as "NSString" *

ns (simulator) ns (from network simulator) is a name for a series of discrete event network simulators, specifically ns-1, ns-2, and ns-3. All are discrete-event computer network simulators, primarily used in research and teaching. History ns-1 The f ...

(or "ns-2"), an open source network simulator

Mathematics

ns (elliptic function) In mathematics, the Jacobi elliptic functions are a set of basic elliptic functions. They are found in the description of the pendulum (mechanics), motion of a pendulum, as well as in the design of electronic elliptic filters. While trigonometry, ...

, one of Jacobi's elliptic functions * NS, the Néron–Severi group

Other uses in science and technology

Nanosecond A nanosecond (ns) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one billionth of a second, that is, of a second, or seconds. The term combines the SI prefix ''nano-'' indicating a 1 billionth submultiple of an SI unit (e ...

(abbreviated "ns"), a measure of time *

Nanostructure A nanostructure is a structure of intermediate size between microscopic and molecular structures. Nanostructural detail is microstructure at nanoscale. In describing nanostructures, it is necessary to differentiate between the number of dimen ...

Neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...

, a star formed from the collapsed remnant of a massive star * New Shepard 3 (NS3), a reusable launch vehicle from Blue Origin, being tested in 2017-18 *

Newton second The newton-second (also newton second; symbol: N⋅s or N s) is the unit of impulse in the International System of Units (SI). It is dimensionally equivalent to the momentum unit kilogram-metre per second (kg⋅m/s). One newton-seco ...

, the SI derived unit for momentum * Not significant, when differences between categories are smaller than the amount of error/noise in the data, see

Statistical significance In statistical hypothesis testing, a result has statistical significance when a result at least as "extreme" would be very infrequent if the null hypothesis were true. More precisely, a study's defined significance level, denoted by \alpha, is the ...

* Nuclear Ship (NS), a

ship prefix A ship prefix is a combination of letters, usually abbreviations, used in front of the name of a civilian or naval ship that has historically served numerous purposes, such as identifying the vessel's mode of propulsion, purpose, or ownership/na ...

for civilian ship names * Norsk Standard, Norwegian Standard, Standards defined by Standard Norge

Other uses

National school (Ireland) In Ireland, a national school () is a type of primary school that is financed directly by the state, but typically administered jointly by the state, a patron body, and local representatives. In national schools, most major policies, such as the ...

, a type of school *

New Style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various Europe, European countrie ...

(as "N.S." in opposition to Old Style as "O.S."), indicating ''either'' a date in the Julian Calendar with the start of year adjusted to 1 January, or a date in the Gregorian calendar {{disambiguation