simple object access protocol
n. (SOAP, abbr.) ~ An XML-based protocol for accessing services over the Internet using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http).
Citations:
†(SOAP 2003) SOAP Version 1.2 (SOAP) is a lightweight protocol intended for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. It uses XML technologies to define an extensible messaging framework providing a message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation specific semantics.