abbreviation
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See also: Abbreviation
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]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
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /əˌbɹiː.viˈeɪ.ʃən/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (General American) IPA(key): /əˌbɹi.viˈeɪ.ʃn̩/
- Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Noun
[edit]abbreviation (countable and uncountable, plural abbreviations), used with for or of
- The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.][1]
- (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.
- The process of abbreviating. [Mid 16th century.][1]
- (music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
- (music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
- 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.
- 1946-1947, President Truman's committee on Civil Rights
- (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
- (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.
Synonyms
[edit]- abbreviature; abridgement; abstract; compend; compression; condensation; contraction; curtailment; epitome; reduction; shortcut; summary
Antonyms
[edit]Hyponyms
[edit]- (linguistics): acronym (employing initial letters or syllables); clipping (omitting several letters); initialism (employing initial letters); symbol, sign (employing marks other than letters)
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase
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abridged version of a document
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act or result of shortening or reducing
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music: a notation used in music score to denote a direction
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music: one or more dashes through the stem of a note
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mathematics: reduction to lower terms
- 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
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References
[edit]- ↑ 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
[edit]Abbreviation in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
- “abbreviation”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
- “abbreviation”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- "abbreviation" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Ecclesiastical Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms suffixed with -ion
- English 5-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/eɪʃən
- Rhymes:English/eɪʃən/5 syllables
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Linguistics
- English terms with usage examples
- en:Music
- en:Biology
- en:Mathematics