Wiktionary

abbreviation

See also: Abbreviation
For abbreviations in Wiktionary, see Category:Abbreviations by language

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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abbreviation (countable and uncountable, plural abbreviations)

  1. The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.][1]
  2. (linguistics) 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 +, =, @. [Late 16th century.][1] (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)
    Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.
  3. The process of abbreviating. [Mid 16th century.][1]
  4. (music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
  5. (music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
  6. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.
    • 1946-1947, President Truman's committee on Civil Rights
      The phrase "civil rights" is an abbreviation for a whole complex of relationships.
  7. (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
  8. (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

Usage notes

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  • In the linguistic sense, typically used in the phrase "abbreviation of" or "abbreviation for", rather than "abbreviation from".

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Hyponyms

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  • (linguistics): acronym (employing initial letters or syllables); clipping (omitting several letters); initialism (employing initial letters); symbol, sign (employing marks other than letters)

Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abbreviation”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 3.

Further reading

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