ABBRE'VIATE, v.t. [from Latin abbrevio, brevio, from brevis, short] 1. To shorten; to make shorter by contracting the parts. [In this sense, not much used, nor often applied to material substances.]2. To shorten; to abridge by the omission or defalcation of a part; to reduce to a smaller compass; as to abbreviate a writing.3. In mathematics, to reduce fractions to the lowest terms.
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