Frequently asked questions (FAQ) or Questions and Answers (Q&A), are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. The format is commonly used on email mailing lists and other online forums, where certain common questions tend to recur.
“FAQ” is pronounced as either an initialism (F-A-Q) or an acronym. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies; “F-A-Q”,[1] is commonly heard. Depending on usage, the term may refer specifically to a single frequently asked question, or to an assembled list of many questions and their answers. Web page designers often label a single list of questions as an “FAQ”, such as on Google.com,[2] while using “FAQs” to denote multiple lists of questions such as on United States Treasury sites.[3]
Originally the term “FAQ” referred to the Frequently Asked Question itself, and the compilation of questions and answers was known as a “FAQ list” or some similar expression. The term became more frequently used to refer to the list, and a text consisting of questions and their answers is often called a FAQ regardless of whether the questions are actually frequently asked, if they are asked at all, or if there is even any way of asking questions.