etc. is an abbreviation for et cetera, which means by analogy, and others, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., and is usually placed at the end of a sentence to indicate that the enumeration is not yet complete. Its phonetic symbol is [et ?set?r?].

Expansion:

etc. can be interchanged with and so on, and the like, which mean etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., to indicate that the list is not finished. The list goes on.

etc. is an adverbial in the New Oxford Dictionary and has two meanings, one is used at the end of a list to indicate that further, similar items are included and so on. We are trying to resolve problems of obtaining requipment, drugs, et cetera.

The second is indicating that a list is too tedious or cliched to give in full (used to indicate that a list is too long, too cliched to be enumerated one by one) and so on, for example We are all got to do our duty, pull our weight, et cetera. We are all got to do our duty, pull our weight, et cetera.