If you're versed in things like the three-way handshake (SYN, SYN/ACK, ACK) and how that establishes a state, the statelessness of UDP, how timed-out states get torn down (FIN, FIN/ACK, ACK) after an inactivity time-out (FIN/WAIT, CLOSE/WAIT, CLOSING ...) etcetera, it should be no secret what these terms mean. So SirDice's reply about having to understand TCP/IP basics and terminology is simply the correct answer. One is impossible to understand (and explain) without knowledge of the other.