OTP (fandom)
Etymology
An initialism of "one true pairing," coined in online fandom (LiveJournal, fanfiction, and anime communities) in the early-to-mid 2000s. It builds on the vocabulary of "shipping" — rooting for fictional characters to be in a relationship.
noun · /oh-tee-PEE/
"One true pairing": a fan’s single favorite romantic couple in a story, canonical or not.
What it names
It names the particular ship a fan is most devoted to above all others — the relationship they most want to see together and will defend, analyze, and create work around. It marks emotional investment in fiction as a serious, ranked commitment.
Example
They’re barely in three scenes together, but they’re my OTP and I will not be reasoned with.
Related idea
Narrower than a ship: a fan may enjoy many ships, but the OTP is the one that outranks them all.
noun · /oh-tee-PEE/
A one-time password — a single-use login code, valid once and then dead — and, in cryptography, the one-time pad it descends from.
What it names
It names the security value of use-once: a credential a thief cannot reuse. Its ancestor, the one-time pad, is the only cipher proven mathematically unbreakable — at the impractical cost of a truly random key as long as the message itself.
Example
Enter the OTP we just sent to your phone.
Related idea
The security OTP and the fandom OTP share only their letters — an accident of abbreviation.