abridge

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English abreggen, also abriggen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman abreger,^[2][5][6] from Old French abregier, also abrigier (modern French abréger),^[4][5][7][8] from Late Latin abbreviō (“to shorten, make brief”),^[5][4][7][9] formed from ad- (“to”) and breviō (“to shorten”), from brevis (“short”),^[4][2][8] from Proto-Indo-European *mregh-u- (“short”).^[4] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the first half of the 12th century, as abrejer, for shortening a period of time, and later for reducing something in size, condensing a text and curtailing a right.^[5][6] The change of Latin “-vi-” to French “-dg-” is the same as in assuage and deluge;^[4][9] Weekley compares French alléger (“to lighten”), from Vulgar Latin *alleviō.^[10] The Latin verb was later borrowed directly as abbreviate, a doublet of abridge.^{[4][9][8][11]}

Earliest recorded meaning

To deprive a person of something: about 1303, in Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne, in a manuscript of before 1400.^[5][9] The Oxford Dictionary of English also gives "deprive of" as the Middle English sense,^[12] and Etymonline dates the word to about 1300.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Wycliffite Bible of the early 1380s used the verb for reducing something in size or extent (now rare), for shortening a text while keeping its substance, and for cutting short a period of time.^[5][9] Gower used it, before 1393, for curtailing a right or privilege, a sense found in Anglo-Norman since 1283.^[5] Chaucer has the word nine times, for reducing, limiting or alleviating.^[13] In law, from about 1523 to 1809, a plaintiff could abridge a writ or claim by leaving out parts of it.^[5] From the late 16th century the verb also meant to produce a shorter text from a longer one, and the noun abridgment is recorded from 1494.^[5][9] A short-lived sense "to prevent harm, frustrate a purpose" (before 1435 to 1605) has no parallel in French or Latin.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave first "to make shorter in words, keeping still the same substance" and then "to contract, to diminish".^[14] The sense "deprive", the earliest, is now archaic.^[2][15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1303 – to deprive someone of something.^[5][9]
• before 1382 – to make smaller or shorter in extent.^[5]
• c. 1384 – to shorten a text; to cut short a period of time.^[5][9]
• before 1393 – to curtail a right or privilege, in Gower.^[5]
• c. 1435 – to prevent harm, to thwart (obsolete by 1605).^[5]
• c. 1523 – in law, to omit parts of a writ or claim (obsolete by 1809).^[5]
• 1576 – to produce a text by shortening a longer work.^[5]
• 1634 – noun, an abridged version.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shorten a book or other text by condensing it or leaving parts out, keeping the substance: The publisher abridged the memoir for a school edition.^{[15][2][5][17]}
2. To curtail or reduce the scope of a right, privilege or power: laws that abridge the rights of tenants.^[15][2][5]
3. To shorten in duration; to cut short: Bad weather abridged our holiday.^[2][5]
4. (archaic) To deprive someone of something, usually with of.^{[15][2][16][5]}

Word family

• abridger
• abridgable
• abridgment
• reabridge

Related words

• unabridged
• abbreviate
• brief

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin