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I’ve just come across “n.d.” used as an abbreviation, as a bibliographic reference in an academic essay, along the lines of:

Smith (n.d.) discusses the subaquaeous pliability of rattan fibres…

Is anyone familiar with this? Unfortunately it seems rather difficult to Google for (since it’s an abbreviation for many other things as well) and checking a couple of scholarly style guides, I haven’t found it mentioned…

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3 Answers 3

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It seems likely that it stands for "No Date". To be sure, check the bibliography.

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    I've used n.d. in APA-style papers. It does mean "no date" for a citation.
    – Kelly Hess
    Mar 24, 2011 at 20:05
  • Ah, thankyou! Yes, this looks to be exactly what the authors are using it for.
    – PLL
    Mar 24, 2011 at 20:23
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    Is there any "official" source that says that the n.d. acronym stands for "No Date"? I tried to google this and I didn't manage to find a confirmation.
    – GeekInDisguise
    May 29, 2020 at 9:41
  • @Kubuntuer82 As Kelly Hess indicated this follows the APA-style. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition, page 291 would be a citable source
    – user1
    May 31, 2021 at 22:07
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it is mentioned when there is no date or year is given. thats specially in the case of article having no print version and is available on internet only. so the yesr would not be there and you mention it like (n.d)

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I believe it means "no date" because it may be uncertain of the date of when the author contributed to a particular topic/field of his/her expertise.

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    Your experience of the use of this term would be more helpful if you would give an example or cite a reference.
    – Theresa
    Oct 2, 2014 at 17:57

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