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Glite Dictionary
✂️ To make shorter 🔤 To shorten words
to abbreviate

to abbreviate

7 3.8
To shorten a word or phrase by using its first letters
  • verb
  • /əˈbriv.i.eɪt/
translation icon : abreviar
  • The instrument is a psychometrically valid, abbreviated 30-item version of the original 65-item measure.
  • abbreviated version
  • abbreviated form
  • abbreviated title

Well, there is a an imperative in many bureaucracies that the bureaucrats abbreviate as CYA.

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Examples

  • "Today, we'll be discussing the basic principles of Artificial Life, which I'll sometimes abbreviate as AL."

    Fiction book (2002)

  • So I'm going to abbreviate virtual memory as VM.

  • And in a written form, she might abbreviate things all sorts of ways.

  • The next one is your sine function and we usually we just abbreviate your sine as SIN.

  • Now I'm going to abbreviate hemoglobin as HP.

  • I should say that everything that follows concerns the test's verbal section, normally abbreviated as SATV.

    Academic text (1999)

  • Personality information was determined by using an abbreviated form of the well-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

    Academic text (2010)

  • For example, one topic that we addressed was public distrust of science (see abbreviated syllabus SI).

    Academic text (2013)

  • For this study, we used an abbreviated Hebrew translation of Bloom's (1985) questionnaire.

    Academic text (2009)

  • In her notes, she decided to abbreviate the long technical terms to save space.

Synonyms

to shorten
vsto abbreviate
39 2.1

Become shorter in length or time

denotes deliberate linguistic reduction by omission or shorter forms
to elide
vsto abbreviate
2 8.2

To leave out part of a word when you say or write it

uses many shortening methods beyond just dropping sounds
to apocopate
vsto abbreviate
  • Specialized
9.9

To shorten a word by dropping its last sound or syllable

shortens words by omitting letters or using shorter forms
to abridge
vsto abbreviate
6.7

Make a book, play, or speech shorter by removing parts while keeping the main idea

applies to making words or phrases shorter as well as longer texts

Antonyms

to elaborate
79 4.2

To give more details or explain something more fully

to lengthen
34 2.4

Make something longer in size, distance, or time

How Short

truncate
7.5
to abbreviate
7 3.8
to shorten
45 2.3
to contract
52 3.0

Surface Forms

abbreviate infinitive
abbreviated past
abbreviated past participle
abbreviating present participle
abbreviates third person singular

Etymology

The word abbreviate comes from the Latin root brevis meaning 'short', the same root as in brief and brevity. So when you abbreviate a word or phrase you make it shorter by leaving out letters or using initials.