abbreviation

plural abbreviations · alternative abbr. · alternative abbrv. · alternative abbrev.

1. countableuncountableThe result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.First known use First attested around 1350 to 1470.
2. countableuncountablehuman sciencesA 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 +, =, @.First known use Late 16ᵗʰ century.

   Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.

   2 more examples

   The symbol MB is an abbreviation of megabyte.

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

   2024 June 20, Eva Corlett, “Fidlets, fingies and riding a doo: study sheds light on Antarctic English slang”, in The Guardian

3. countableuncountableThe process of abbreviating.First known use Mid 16ᵗʰ century.
4. countableuncountableentertainmentA notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
5. countableuncountableentertainmentOne or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
6. countableuncountableAny convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.

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

   1946-1947, Harry S. Truman, President Truman's committee on Civil Rights

7. countableuncountablebiologyLoss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
8. countableuncountablemathematicsReduction to lower terms, as a fraction.