Associations to the word «Abbreviation»

Wiktionary

ABBREVIATION, noun. The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.]
ABBREVIATION, noun. (linguistics) A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, utilizing omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as, +, =, @. [Late 16th century.]
ABBREVIATION, noun. The process of abbreviating. [Mid 16th century.]
ABBREVIATION, noun. (music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
ABBREVIATION, noun. (music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
ABBREVIATION, noun. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.
ABBREVIATION, noun. (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
ABBREVIATION, noun. (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

Dictionary definition

ABBREVIATION, noun. A shortened form of a word or phrase.
ABBREVIATION, noun. Shortening something by omitting parts of it.

Wise words

Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.
William Butler Yeats