abbreviation

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word abbreviation. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word abbreviation, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say abbreviation in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word abbreviation you have here. The definition of the word abbreviation will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofabbreviation, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
See also: Abbreviation
For abbreviations in Wiktionary, see Category:Abbreviations by language

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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”). Morphologically abbreviate +‎ -ion

Pronunciation

Noun

abbreviation (countable and uncountable, plural abbreviations), used with for or of

  1. The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.
  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 +, =, @.
    Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.
  3. The process of abbreviating.
  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.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Hyponyms

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

Derived terms

Translations

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

References

  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

Wikious
Boobota
Sagapedia