abbreviation

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

noun

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, utilizing 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.