Definition of "abbreviation" in English

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, using 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.

7. (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.

8. (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.