How to use shorthand in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Shorthand means a rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc. Example: “The jargon becomes a shorthand for these advanced concepts.”

Examples of shorthand by meaning

nounA rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.

The origin of shorthand writing has been variously attributed to the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans.1918, Isaac Pitman, A History of Shorthand, 4th edition, London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd. […], →OCLC, page 1
Right away you say that nobody learns how to read shorthand.1986, Rudolf Flesch, “A Letter to Johnny’s Mother”, in Why Johnny Can’t Read – and What You can Do about It, 1st Perennial Library edition...

nounAny brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.

The jargon becomes a shorthand for these advanced concepts.
When we borrow such shorthands, we are really referring to the Arapaho, Blackfeet, Chumash, Delaware, Eskimo, Flathead, Ghost Dancers, Hopi, Iowa—and so on through the rest of the alphabet right to the Yuma and Zuni.2004, Edwin S[cott] Gaustad, Leigh E. Schmidt, “Beginnings”, in The Religious History of America, revised edition, New York, N.Y....
Trust me, he's Pakistani, because that's the average numpty's shorthand for Muslim.2010, Mick Herron, Slow Horses, page 119

verbTo render (spoken or written words) into shorthand.

All the time she'd pretended to be fiddling with her purse over there behind the man, she'd been shorthanding him down—every word, every quotation, every date, every name.1947, Bill [i.e., Elijah William] Cunningham, The Pearl of Her Sex, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 23
He'd just shorthanded his notes during and after the sessions.2012, J. L. Dobias, chapter 19, in Cripple Mode: Hot Electric, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, pages 383–384

verbTo use a brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.

It was as good a way as any to shorthand the world, he thought.2005 June, Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →ISBN; 1st trade paperback edition, New...

More sentences with shorthand

Since I learned shorthand, I can take dictation at eighty words a minute.From the entry dictation
Each consonant symbol in the shorthand is qualifiable with various vowel markers.From the entry qualifiable
A secretary should have a good knowledge of shorthand.From the entry knowledge
Like their Western counterparts, local media engages in shorthand - it reports rather than explains.2019 July 9, Patrick Gathara, “The problem is not 'negative' Western media coverage of Africa”, in Al Jazeera English. From the entry explain
He identifies as KHHV – incel shorthand for a "kiss-less, handhold-less, hug-less virgin".2019 July 12, Tomé Morrissy-Swan, “My life as a British incel, and how I removed myself from the misogynistic movement”, in The Daily…. From the entry KHHV
Though the file encodes the cabin class as an integer, it is really shorthand for a category.2016, John V. Guttag, Introduction to Computation and Programming Using Python, page 425. From the entry cabin class
There are a few weird Twitterisms that are part of the Twitter shorthand.2011, Michelle Golden, Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility and Accelerating…. From the entry twitterism
Most jobs come with their own shorthand, but few are as endlessly fascinating as Copspeak.2010 November 7, John Crace, “How gavvers – or the police – really speak”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News…. From the entry copspeak
They became shorthand for English style, like Staffordshire spaniels minus the tweeness.2009 March 13, Christopher Petkanas, “Blade Runner”, in New York Times. From the entry tweeness
Our students are using Internet shorthand or chatspeak in their online yakking in chat rooms and e-mails.2002, Ronald A. Berk, Humor as an instructional defibrillator: evidence-based techniques in teaching and assessment, Stylus, page 140. From the entry chatspeak
In the meantime, tourists looking for a shorthand course in what happens from St.1999 June 26, Mark Lepage, “Finest of the freebies: We offer a sampling of the best bang for no bucks in the festival’s outdoor shows”, in…. From the entry fleur-de-lised
The Hebrew word zahav (ZaHaB) is the notarikon (shorthand) for Zan, Ha'aret, and Bonayh Yerushalayim.1996, Macy Nulman, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Prayer, page 120. From the entry notarikon
The same author also cites Pitman's shorthand as an example of a ‘featural’ writing system .1995, Roy Harris, Signs of Writing, Psychology Press, page 58. From the entry featural
Is it too much to imagine a Bible written entirely in the language of tomorrow: Internet chatspeak and text message shorthand?2008, Tom Breen, The Messiah formerly known as Jesus : dispatches from the intersection of Christianity and pop culture, Baylor University…. From the entry chatspeak
The maps are then read in terms of “brow level,” a shorthand for cultural stratification that mirrors social stratification.2003, Shin Kap-Han, “Unraveling the Brow: What and How of Choice in Musical Preference”, in Sociological Perspectives, volume 46, number…. From the entry brow-level
Repeated exponentiation—called tetration—is so rare that a shorthand for it is hardly worth the trouble, appealing only to research mathematicians.1993, Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, Joseph Maguire, “One”, in Zero to Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers, New York, N.Y.: Touchstone…. From the entry tetration
Most professional engineers and scientists never encounter tetration, and the shorthand for it is seldom taught anywhere but in mathematics departments.1993, Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, Joseph Maguire, “One”, in Zero to Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers, New York, N.Y.: Touchstone…. From the entry tetration
The enthusiasm for handy phrases of verbal shorthand is understandable.1980. The Chinese Wall Defense to Law Firm Disqualification 128 U.Pa.L.Rev. 677. From the entry Chinese Wall
The approaches discussed are ( in shorthand ) the charismatic legitimation theory, the elite-mass gap theory, and the uniparty theory.1967, Claude Ake, A Theory of Political Integration, page 14. From the entry uniparty
Among bibliophiles, “antiquitization” served as shorthand for anxieties over the integration of old books into a general market of commodities for profit.2020, Nathan Shockey, The Typographic Imagination: Reading and Writing in Japan’s Age of Modern Print Media, Columbia University Press…. From the entry antiquitization
I thought he meant 'bigly' as in 'hugely' or 'ginormously' or even 'supercalifragilisticexpialidociously' — but no, 'bigly' was Trump's Twitter shorthand for 'big league'.2018, Gyles Brandreth, Have You Eaten Grandma?, page 5. From the entry supercalifragilisticexpialidociously
"This repetition frequently combines with a shorthand signification which stands synecdochally for the entire memory, which is usually too terrible to bear."2014, Alan Gibbs, Contemporary American Trauma Narratives. From the entry synecdochally
Whereas a film can become an instant cult, and then forgotten, a film cannot become an “instant classic”, which is only critical shorthand for “excellent”.2008 August 8, Ronald Bergan, “Don't confuse cults with classics”, in The Guardian. From the entry cult
The unsolved crimes had been back-burnered until a reporter revealed that the letters stamped on the police files were shorthand for No Human Involved.2008, Linda Fairstein, Killer Heat, page 191. From the entry back-burner
I listed her hobbies as swordplay and, on the advice of a friend well versed in chat-room culture, OTK--over the knee, erotic shorthand for spanking.1997 July, Lynn Darling, “‘Dear Ravager, I've never done this before...’”, in Esquire, volume 128, number 1, New York, →ISSN. From the entry OTK
Outsiders are called "whuffos" -- shorthand for "What for you do that crazy stuff?" "You can always tell a whuffo right away," Mr.1991, “The Executive Life; The Thrill of the Dive; The Roar of the Boss”, in New York Times. From the entry whuffo
Knowledge of shorthand and typing ability.1976 April 10, “Classified advertisement”, in Gay Community News, page 18. From the entry secr.
There also went the confidential secretaries, the clerks and shorthand typists, in their hundreds; degreeless, brainless beings, but wise in their generation.1920, Rose Macaulay, Potterism. From the entry degreeless
As a shorthand, we could also call it global trade, in contradistinction from local trade, the latter being within the nation state, or at short distance.2026 January 14, Alan Taylor, “Driving over the peak, or a false summit? − speech by Alan Taylor”, in (Please provide the book title or…. From the entry contradistinction
Rather than elevating the prose, the rhymes feel glib and the sentiment vague, shorthand for an unspecified intensity: “They wanted things they couldn’t name; they wanted rest.2026 April 28, Shahidha Bari, “Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest review – painfully earnest tale of trauma and transition”, in The…. From the entry glib
Being Letterboxd-pilled is essentially shorthand for saying that you’re into movies more than your typical MCU buff, kind of like what MUBI is to Amazon Prime.2024 February 29, Jack King, “Why everyone you know is suddenly a Letterboxd head”, in GQ. From the entry MCU
The latest entry in the lexicon of food-related ills is drunkorexia, shorthand for a disturbing blend of behaviors: self-imposed starvation or bingeing and purging, combined with alcohol abuse .2008 March 2, Sarah Kershaw, “Starving Themselves, Cocktail in Hand”, in New York Times. From the entry drunkorexia

Meaning of shorthand

noun A rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.
noun Any brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.
verb To render (spoken or written words) into shorthand.

Full definition of shorthand

Questions about shorthand in a sentence

How do you use shorthand in a sentence?: Shorthand is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The jargon becomes a shorthand for these advanced concepts.”
What is a short sentence with shorthand?: “Knowledge of shorthand and typing ability.”
What does shorthand mean?: Shorthand means a rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shorthand (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 shorthand in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/shorthand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.