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

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.