Abbreviated

How to spell abbreviated

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce abbreviated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abbreviated mean?

1. verbShortened a word, phrase, or text by leaving out parts of it.
2. adjectiveMade shorter than usual or than the full version.

Abbreviated in a sentence

• verb

  The editor abbreviated the lengthy report before circulating it to the board.

• adjective

  The conference offered an abbreviated schedule on the final afternoon.

• verb

  She abbreviated her job title to fit it onto the business card.

• adjective

  Passengers received an abbreviated version of the safety briefing.

Where does abbreviated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb abbreviare, meaning 'to make short' or 'to shorten'. That verb was built from the prefix ad- (meaning 'to', here softened to ab- before the b) and the adjective brevis, which literally meant 'short' or 'brief' in everyday Latin. The same brevis root gives English the familiar words 'brief', 'brevity', and even 'abridge', so the family resemblance is strong. Latin abbreviare passed into late medieval English in the 1400s, when scribes who copied manuscripts by hand routinely shortened long words to save precious parchment. The doubled b, which is the main spelling trap, is a direct fossil of that assimilated ad- prefix colliding with the b of brevis, while the single v reflects the original brevis spelling.

How the word is built

• ab- (assimilated form of ad-: to)
• brevi (from Latin brevis: short)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past tense / participle)