bbs

5 synonyms for bbs, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Abbreviation — Be back soon; typed in chat, gaming and messaging to say you are stepping away for a short while.

Synonyms

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

brb be right back afk bulletin board system dial-up board

Synonyms by Meaning

1. abbreviation informal

Be back soon; typed in chat, gaming and messaging to say you are stepping away for a short while.

“bbs, someone's at the door.”

brb be right back afk

2. noun

A bulletin board system: a computer running software that users dialled into by modem to read messages, swap files and play text games, widely used before the World Wide Web.

“He ran a two-line BBS out of his bedroom in 1992.”

bulletin board system dial-up board

How to use bbs

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

bbs in five brb bbs dial-up BBS BBS door game

Informal in chat. In writing about computing history, BBS is capitalised and takes 'a' or 'the'.

Etymology

An initialism of be back soon; the computing sense is an initialism of bulletin board system.

Full origin of bbs →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between bbs and brb?

Both say you are leaving briefly. BRB, be right back, implies a very short absence of a minute or two. BBS, be back soon, is vaguer and usually means a somewhat longer gap. BBL, be back later, is longer still.

What was a BBS in computing?

It was a computer you dialled directly with a modem, before the web existed, to post on message boards, download files and play text-based games. Most were run by hobbyists, handled only one or a few callers at a time, and served a local phone area.

People also searched

AFK brb

Nearby words

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