NS

NS as an abbreviation can mean:

In geography:

• Negeri Sembilan, one of the fourteen states in Malaysia
• Novi Sad, a city in Serbia
• Nova Scotia, as the official Canadian postal abbreviation for the province

In government and politics:

• Nasjonal Samling, a 1930s Norwegian national socialist political party
• National service, a name for the conscription system of some militaries
• Nazism, also known as "National Socialism" in Germany, the ideology held by, amongst many other political parties, the National Socialist German Workers Party
• Naša stranka, political party in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• New Serbia (Нова Србија or Nova Srbija), a moderate nationalist 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, a political party in the Republic of Montenegro

In commerce:

• National Semiconductor (also known as "Natsemi"), an American integrated circuit design and manufacturing company
• Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the main public transport railway company in the Netherlands
• Norfolk Southern Railway, a major Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation
• Norfolk Southern Railway (former), the final name of a railroad running in Virginia and North Carolina before its acquisition by the Southern Railway in 1974

In computing and computer gaming:

• Name server, a computer server that implements a name service protocol
  • NS record, a DNS record type
• Namespace (computer science), an abstract container used in computing
• Natural Selection (computer game), a mod for the game Half-life
• NetStorm, an RTS published in 1997 by Activision
• NEXTSTEP, 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) (or "ns-2"), a popular open source network simulator
• Nice shot, a typed slang term used in online multiplayer video games
• Jennifer Government: NationStates, a web-based simulation game

In 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

In science and history:

• "New Style date" (as "N.S."), a date designation indicating derivation from the Gregorian Calendar, as opposed to "O.S." indicating derivation from the Julian Calendar (see Old Style and New Style dates)
• 1 E-9 s (or "nanosecond", abbreviated "ns"), a measure of time
• Normal saline, a solution of sodium chloride used in intravenous drips (see Saline (medicine))
• Nanostructure
• Neutron star, a star formed from the collapsed remnant of a massive star
• No significant difference, when differences between categories are smaller than the amount of error/noise in the data
• Nervous system, the system of neurons that coordinates the actions of an organism

In other areas:

• a ship prefix for civilian ship names meaning "Nuclear Ship"
• a code for "non-smoking" designating that tobacco smoking is not permitted
• in medicine, normal saline
• Nanosecond