bw

Bw is a two-letter combination that can function as an acronym, abbreviation, or transliteration across different domains. Because it lacks a single, widely recognized meaning, its interpretation depends on context, capitalization, and discipline.

In geography and international codes, the uppercase form BW is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code for Botswana; in practice, many datasets treat such codes as case-insensitive, so Bw may appear in mixed-case contexts.

In media, photography, and publishing, bw is commonly used as an abbreviation for black and white, signaling monochrome imagery or printing processes.

In technology and science, bw is used as a shorthand for bandwidth or body weight, depending on the field. In networking, bandwidth refers to the capacity of a link, while in biology and medicine bw often stands for body weight in charts and data fields.

Because Bw has multiple possible meanings, it is typically necessary to rely on surrounding text to determine its intended sense. It also overlaps with related abbreviations such as B/W and BW, which encode related ideas in different contexts.