An abbreviation for short-term interest rate contract. STIR contracts may take the form STIR futures, STIR option, STIR swap, etc. In general STIR refers to STIR futures. By definition, a STIR futures is a contract on forward transactions that represents an obligation at some future settlement date to buy or sell a standardized amount of some short-term interest rate product at a preset price for a cash settlement. STIRs are listed derivatives, and unlike OTC derivatives, the contract specification of STIR contracts are standardized. STIR contracts have a standard contract size as specified by the exchange (CME, EURONEXT, EUREX, etc).