Abbreviation

Quick meaning: Abbreviation is a noun meaning The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.

Meaning

The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.

More Meanings

1. The process of abbreviating.
2. (music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
3. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.
4. (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
5. (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.
6. (music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
7. (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 +, =, @.

Example Sentences

Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.

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

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

Word Forms

• abbreviations

Synonyms for abbreviation

Depending on context, synonyms include abbreviature, abridgement, abstract, compend, compression, condensation.

Antonyms for abbreviation

Common opposites include amplification, dilation, enlargement, expansion, expatiation, extension.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include brevity, shorthand, mention, symbol, acronym, defined.

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