A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, utilizing omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as +, =, @.
The process of abbreviating.
Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.
Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.
Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment.
A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
A lengthy lecture on a subject; a treatise; a discourse; a sermon.
A formal exposition of a subject, especially a research paper that students write in order to complete the requirements for a doctoral degree in the US and a non-doctoral degree in the UK; a thesis.