HyperText Transfer Protocol.
The method by which hypertext files are transferred across the Internet. Let's examine these terms one at a time. "Hypertext" was coined by Ted Nelson in 1965 to mean "text which is not constrained to be linear." When used with the web, it is text that is linked to something else. When you click on a word and you are shown another page (or a sound file or a picture), you are using hypertext. Hypertext allows you to jump around between files, following your own interests and train of thought. World Wide Web pages written in HTML use hypertext to link to other documents.

Hypertext transfer is simply the tranfer of hypertext files from computer to computer. When you are reading a hypertext document, say, at the Library of Congress site, you can click on a link that takes you to the NASA page. Of course, you haven't actually gone anywhere. A document simply has been transferred from NASA's computer to your computer, across the Internet.

Now what on earth is protocol? In computerese, a protocol is a set of standards used by two computers to communicate and exchange information with each other. To put it all together, HyperText Transfer Protocol is the set of standards used by computers to transfer hypertext files (web pages) over the Internet.