# abbreviation

> English word · Noun · IPA /əˌbɹiː.viˈeɪ.ʃən/ · frequency rank #24,070

## Definitions
1. The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.
2. 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 +, =, @.
3. The process of abbreviating.
4. A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
5. 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. Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
8. Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

## Etymology
First attested 1400–50. From Middle English abbreviacioun, from Middle French abreviation, from Ecclesiastical Latin abbreviātiō, from Latin ab + breviō (“shorten”), from brevis (“short”). By surface analysis, abbreviate + -ion.

## Common misspellings (16)
`abberviation`, `abbreivation`, `abbrevaition`, `abbreviaiton`, `abbreviasion`, `abbreviatino`, `abbreviationn`, `abbreviatoin`, `abbreviattion`, `abbrevitaion`, `abbrevviation`, `abbrreviation`, `abbrveiation`, `abrbeviation`, `abreviation`, `babreviation`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/abbreviation