verb
abridge
uh-BRIJ/əˈbrɪdʒ/
To shorten a written or spoken work while keeping its main substance.
The editor abridges the novel for a shorter classroom edition.
Etymology
The central idea is making something shorter, and abridge shares its ancestry with abbreviate. Applied to writing, it developed the specific sense of shortening by omission, producing a reduced version of a work.
More examples
- They abridged the speech without losing its central argument.
- The publisher is abridging the memoir for younger readers.
- Please do not abridge the passage containing the conclusion.
Forms
abridge · abridges · abridged · abridging