How to use abbreviate in a sentence

11 example sentences · verb, adjective, noun

Abbreviate means to shorten by omitting parts or details. Example: “Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is more commonly known by its abbreviated form BSE.”

Examples of abbreviate by meaning

verbTo make shorter; to shorten (in time); to abridge; to shorten by ending sooner than planned.

Now, companies also need smaller distribution centres around the country, to respond rapidly to orders and to abbreviate the last mile as much as possible.2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London...

verbTo reduce a word or phrase by means of contraction or omission to a shorter recognizable form.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is more commonly known by its abbreviated form BSE.
Alana abbreviated "involuntarily celibate" to "invcel", until someone suggested that "incel" was easier to say.2018 August 29, Jim Taylor, “The woman who founded the 'incel' movement”, in BBC

More sentences with abbreviate

In most cases, at subsequent mentions of the binomial name you can abbreviate the genus with no danger of confusing the reader.From the entry genus
The Scientologist, sometimes, in using Scientologese abbreviates this to “Ack”; he “acked the person.”1975, L[afayette] Ron Hubbard, “Acknowledgement”, in Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, Los Angeles, Calif.: Church of…. From the entry Scientologese
But I’m fine with candidates like AOC (can we start abbreviating?) proposing the jobs guarantee, for a couple of reasons.2018 July 5, Paul Krugman, “More on a Job Guarantee (Wonkish)”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2018. From the entry AOC
“Whatev.” “Whatev?” “Word.” “You mean, like, let's g?” “No go's already short enough, you don't need to abbreviate it.”2010, Nick McDonell, Twelve, Grove/Atlantic, Inc., →ISBN, page 95. From the entry whatev
Back when Chris was a youngster in college, "za" was short for pizza--as if pizza were a lengthy word needing abbreviating.2006, Lee Simon, The restaurant dream?: an inside look at restaurant development, from concept to reality, →ISBN, page 44. From the entry za
To deabbreviate, we "generate-and-test": We select candidates and abbreviate them various ways, trying to obtain a match with a given abbreviation.1994 March, Neil C. Rowe, Kari Laitinen, Semiautomatic Deabbreviation of Source Programs, Monterey, Calif.: Naval Postgraduate School…. From the entry deabbreviate
The Data Resource Lexicon contains all the algorithms for abbreviating data names and a definition of when each algorithm is used.1994, Michael H. Brackett, “[Data Documentation] Data Resource Lexicon”, in Data Sharing Using a Common Data Architecture (Wiley…. From the entry unabbreviation
Orthotanasia refers to the art of promoting a humane and correct death, not subjecting patients to misthanasia or dysthanasia and not abbreviating death either, that is, subjecting them to euthanasia.2009 September/October, Chaiane Amorim Biondo, Maria Júlia Paes da Silva, Lígia Maria Dal Secco, “Dysthanasia, Euthanasia, Orthotanasia…. From the entry misthanasia

Meaning of abbreviate

verb To shorten by omitting parts or details.
verb To speak or write in a brief manner.
verb To make shorter; to shorten (in time); to abridge; to shorten by ending sooner than planned.

Full definition of abbreviate

Questions about abbreviate in a sentence

How do you use abbreviate in a sentence?: Abbreviate is used as a verb, adjective and noun. For example: “Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is more commonly known by its abbreviated form BSE.”
What is a short sentence with abbreviate?: “Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is more commonly known by its abbreviated form BSE.”
What does abbreviate mean?: Abbreviate means to shorten by omitting parts or details.

Adapted from Wiktionary: abbreviate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use abbreviate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/abbreviate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.