From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
comma separated values
CSV
<file format> (CSV) A file format used as a portable
representation of a database. Each line is one entry or
record and the fields in a record are separated by commas.
Commas may be followed by arbitrary space and/or tab
characters which are ignored. If field includes a comma, the
whole field must be surrounded with double quotes.
(1995-05-06)