Shortcut

How to spell shortcut

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shortcut

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shortcut mean?

1. nounA quicker route or path that saves distance compared with the usual way.
2. nounAn easier or quicker way of doing something, often one that skips proper effort.
3. nounA key combination or desktop icon that gives quick access to a function or file.

Shortcut in a sentence

• The shortcut through the park saves us ten minutes on the walk to work.

• There is no shortcut to mastering a language; it takes daily practice.

• The keyboard shortcut for copying text is the same on most laptops.

• Local drivers take a shortcut along the back lanes to avoid the motorway traffic.

• The manager warned the team not to take a shortcut on safety checks.

• She created a desktop shortcut so the spreadsheet opens with one click.

Where does shortcut come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining the adjective 'short' to the noun 'cut'. The first element 'short' descends from Old English 'sceort', meaning 'not long' or 'brief', a word shared with the older Germanic languages. The second element 'cut' arrived later in Middle English with the sense of a slicing stroke, and by extension a passage or channel cut straight through an obstacle, such as a path hacked through woodland or a canal dug across a bend. Put together, a 'shortcut' literally describes a route that has been cut short, and the term is recorded from the seventeenth century onward for a quicker way across country. The newer figurative meanings, an easier method that skips effort and the keyboard combination on a computer, both grew naturally from that original idea of saving distance. The spelling trap is simply whether it is one word, two words, or hyphenated: modern usage settles firmly on the single solid form 'shortcut'.

How the word is built

• short (not long)
• cut (a passage cut through)