What do pty and tty mean?

"tty" originally meant "teletype" and "pty" means "pseudo-teletype".

In UNIX, /dev/tty* is any device that acts like a "teletype", ie, a terminal. (Called teletype because that's what we had for terminals in those benighted days.)

A pty is a pseudotty, a device entry that acts like a terminal to the process reading and writing there, but is managed by something else. They first appeared (as I recall) for X Window and screen and the like, where you needed something that acted like a terminal but could be used from another program.

A tty is a terminal (it stands for teletype - the original terminals used a line printer for output and a keyboard for input!). A terminal is a basically just a user interface device that uses text for input and output.

A pty is a pseudo-terminal - it's a software implementation that appears to the attached program like a terminal, but instead of communicating directly with a "real" terminal, it transfers the input and output to another program.

For example, when you ssh in to a machine and run ls, the ls command is sending its output to a pseudo-terminal, the other side of which is attached to the SSH daemon.

tty: teletype. Usually refers to the serial ports of a computer, to which terminals were attached.

pty: pseudoteletype. Kernel provided pseudoserial port connected to programs emulating terminals, such as xterm, or screen.