What Is an Abbreviation?

OMG! The abbreviation on Oh My God in bold, pink, pop art letters

 Jacquie Boyd / Getty Images

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or phrase, such as "Jan." for "January." The abbreviated form of the word "abbreviation" is "abbr."or, less commonly, "abbrv." or "abbrev." Abbreviation comes from the Latin word brevis meaning "short."

In American English, many abbreviations are followed by a period (such as "Dr." or "Ms."). In contrast, British usage generally omits the period (or full stop) in abbreviations that include the first and last letters of a single word (such as "Dr" or "Ms"). When an abbreviation appears at the end of a sentence, a single period serves both to mark the abbreviation and close the sentence.

Linguist David Crystal notes that abbreviations are "a major component of the English writing system, not a marginal feature. The largest dictionaries of abbreviations contain well over half a million entries, and their number is increasing all the time"

Common Abbreviations

These resources explain more about the various types of abbreviations:

Examples and Observations

"In general, spell out the names of government bureaus and agencies, well-known organizations, companies, etc., on first reference. In later references, use short forms like the agency or the company when possible because handfuls of initials make for mottled typography and choppy prose."

– Siegal, Allan M. and William G. Connolly. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: the Official Style Guide Used by the Writers and Editors of the Worlds Most Authoritative Newspaper. Three Rivers Press, 1999

"Abbreviations may be ironic, humorous, or whimsical: for example, the rail link between the town of Bedford and the London station of St. Pancras is locally known as the Bedpan Line; a comparable link for Boston, New York, and Washington is the Bosnywash circuit. Comments on life may be telescoped into such sardonic packages as: BOGSAT a Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around a Table (making decisions about other people); GOMER Get Out of My Emergency Room (said by physicians to hypochondriacs); MMMBA Miles and Miles of Bloody Africa (an in-group term among people who have to travel those miles); TGIF Thank God It's Friday (after a particularly hard working week)."

– McArthur, Tom.The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford University Press, 1992

Abbreves

"Today, the fave (for 'favorite’) abbreves are obvi (a shortening of 'Thank you, Captain Obvious’) and belig (a clipping of 'belligerent,' retaining the soft g). Nobody in the young-barflies crowd orders 'the usual’; it’s the yoozh. My grandnephew Jesse concludes sentences with whatev, which is probs (for 'probably’) 'whatever.' In this cacophony of abbreves, word endings are scattered all over the floor. Go fig."

– Safire, William. “Abbreve That Template.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 May 2009

Tote-Speak

"You see it on Twitter a lot, people exclaiming about their totes delish spags or their totes redicboyfs. Linguists Lauren Spradlin and Taylor Jones call this practice 'totesing'—the systematic abbreviation ('abbreviash') of words to effect a certain tone. The fad might have started with 'totally' becoming totes, but at this point, no entry in the English lexicon is safe."

– Guo, Jeff. “The Totes Amazesh Way Millennials Are Changing the English Language.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Jan. 2016

Twitter Speak

The following are some real words produced by real human beings on Twitter:

  • "Totes tradge (tragic): David Bowie dying is totes tradge."
  • "Bluebs (blueberries): Bluebs in yog are my favorite snack."
  • "Totes emosh (emotional): When Cookie hugged Jamal it made me totes emosh."
  • "iPh (iPhone): OMG I dropped my iPh!"
  • "If you’re not a millennial—and even if you are—you might think totesing is atrosh and unprofesh. But get used to it. Though no one is quite sure where it came from, this way of speaking has been around for well over a decade."

Logograms

"'Logograms'...play a part in the English writing system: these are cases where a word is not just shortened, but entirely replaced with a symbol. Examples include @ for 'at,' £ for 'pound,' % for 'per cent,' and + for 'plus.' The ampersand, &, is one of the oldest. It is a collapsed version of the Latin word et, 'and': the bottom circle is what's left of the e, and the rising tail on the right is what's left of the t. Numerals are another kind that we read as 1, 2, 3, etc. as 'one, two, three...' And it is part of the business of learning to read and write to know when we should write words in their logographic form and when to spell them out."

– Crystal, David. Spell It Out. Picador, 2014

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Nordquist, Richard. "What Is an Abbreviation?" ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/what-is-abbreviation-1689046. Nordquist, Richard. (2023, April 5). What Is an Abbreviation? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-abbreviation-1689046 Nordquist, Richard. "What Is an Abbreviation?" ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-abbreviation-1689046 (accessed March 19, 2024).