Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To make shorter: synonym: shorten.
- transitive verb To reduce (a word or phrase) to a shorter form intended to represent the full form.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make briefer; abridge; make shorter by contraction or omission of a part: as, to
abbreviate a writing or a word. - In mathematics, to reduce to the lowest terms, as fractions.
- To practise or use abbreviation.
- Abbreviated.
- noun An abridgment; an abstract.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete An abridgment.
- adjective rare Abbreviated; abridged; shortened.
- adjective (Biol.) Having one part relatively shorter than another or than the ordinary type.
- transitive verb To make briefer; to shorten; to abridge; to reduce by contraction or omission, especially of words written or spoken.
- transitive verb (Math.) To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive, mathematics To
reduce to lower terms, as afraction .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb shorten
- verb reduce in scope while retaining essential elements
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
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Examples
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She talked about money, and her points (which I again abbreviate) are:
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To abbreviate or not to abbreviate, that is the important style question
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Desplechin reminded his audience that excellent dialogue was often written for silent movies even though you never hear it and the intertitles abbreviate the script.
Twitch 2008
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· Added "abbreviate" for the month element in the _xml_ format skins.
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For a few years, SAT would abbreviate a hypothetically less offensive but indisputably more awkward name for the examination: Scholastic Assessment Test.
The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010
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For a few years, SAT would abbreviate a hypothetically less offensive but indisputably more awkward name for the examination: Scholastic Assessment Test.
The English Is Coming! Leslie Dunton-Downer 2010
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Along the way you will learn to play the melody and abbreviate the rest of the accompaniment.
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I use the first letter and the last two to abbreviate this and we can simply call you WET.
Things My Co-Workers Say Tyler 2009
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The apostrophe is used when you abbreviate the decade as the '90s (the apostrophe indicates the missing numerals).
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As stated in the Xbox Live Terms of Use, a member may not create a gamertag or use text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature.
Microsoft's Policy Regarding Identifying Sexual Orientation On XBOX Live - The Consumerist 2009
uselessness commented on the word abbreviate
Don't abbrev.
January 25, 2007
tbtabby commented on the word abbreviate
Why is this word so long?
October 9, 2008