IPO

American  

abbreviation

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

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IPO British  

abbreviation

1. independent publicly owned company

2. stock exchange initial public offering

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IPO Cultural  

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

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Etymology

Origin of IPO

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

SpaceX, for its part, is valued at about $1.3 trillion and is planning a record-setting IPO for midyear.

From Barron's • Apr. 10, 2026

As OpenAI prepares for its IPO, the company decided to…pay millions of dollars for a tech talk show?

From Slate • Apr. 10, 2026

It could be the biggest IPO ever but it also might just be the prelude for a record-breaking merger.

From Barron's • Apr. 10, 2026

Still, he is eager to invest in the SpaceX IPO, which could be the largest in history, when he gets the chance.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 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