"Away From Keyboard"
In Holland sometimes used on the street when somebody is diseased.

AFk - Away from Keyboard
The next annoying thing from people going on an IM and putting busy straight away then going 30 minutes later i mean WTF. Avoid doing this unless you truely have a life or you want to play hard to get.

AFK mean away from keyboard and i didn't know that at first until i heard it

afk : away from keyboard , simply asying they might not be able to respond to you .

As mentioned 27 times above afk refers to "away from keyboard". But seeing I first encountered this term in the german version of an online game designed by a company interested in weather turbulences, I took it to be a shortening of "auf klo" meaning "in sitting position, currently getting rid of the pizza I had for lunch". In 49% of all cases, this is an accurate rendering of the term when used in online communication situations. This word is not only used in written language but also in spoken. Anyway, in German the term has undegone significant extensions, resulting in:

with suffix
- afklo, also afkaken (as explained above)
- afkleenex (getting a tissue, winter phenomenon)
- afkaffee ( 49%, equal score to afklo, possible connection still to be researched.)

with prefix
- brain-afk ( used in in-game situations, work out meaning for yourselves. Being in a different category, this meaning is not included in the statistics above but would score significantly higher than either of the other two major forms.)

Means away from keybord

AFK normally stands for ''away from keyboard'', a term used by for example online gamers. For women, however, it mostly means ''away from kitchen''.