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Synonyms

IPO

American  

abbreviation

  1. initial public offering: a company's first stock offering to the public.


IPO British  

abbreviation

  1. independent publicly owned company

  2. stock exchange initial public offering

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

IPO Cultural  
  1. Abbreviation for i nitial p ublic o ffering; the first issuance of shares in itself by a public company.


Etymology

Origin of IPO

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

The IPO lasts for a month and the minimum purchase is 10 shares, costing about $4.

From BBC Sep. 14, 2026

Anthropic meanwhile is gearing up for an imminent IPO to raise further billions for its unprecedented spending on development as well as massive data centres for its power-hungry models.

From Barron's Sep. 14, 2026

The same day, OpenAI said it had filed its IPO paperwork.

From The Wall Street Journal Sep. 14, 2026

Anthropic is expected to publicly file for a potentially massive IPO as soon as this month, while Altman’s OpenAI has ruled out a a public listing until 2027.

From MarketWatch Sep. 14, 2026

It is estimated that a person who invested $5,000 in Netflix at its 2002 IPO would have about $30,000 by January 2010, about $200,000 by January 2015, and about $1.4 million by January 2020.

From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly

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