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abbreviation

noun
/əˌbɹiː.viˈeɪ.ʃən/UK/əˌbɹi.viˈeɪ.ʃn̩/US

Etymology

First attested 1400–50. From Middle English abbreviacioun, from Middle French abreviation, from Ecclesiastical Latin abbreviātiō, from Latin ad + breviō (“shorten”), from brevis (“short”). By surface analysis, abbreviate + -ion.

  1. derived from ad
  2. derived from abbreviātiō
  3. derived from abréviation
  4. inherited from abbreviacioun

Definitions

  1. The result of shortening or reducing

    The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.

  2. A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase used to represent the whole, using…

    A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase used to represent the whole, using omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as +, =, @.

    • Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.
    • Americans, for example, call newcomers to Antarctica “fingies”, which comes from FNGs – a borrowed military abbreviation that means “Fucking New Guy”.

  3. The process of abbreviating.

  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.

    2. One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers,…

      One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.

    3. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.

      • The phrase "civil rights" is an abbreviation for a whole complex of relationships.

    4. Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.

    5. Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

The neighborhood

Derived

abbreviationitis, graphic abbreviation, syllabic abbreviation, unabbreviation

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for abbreviation. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA