Word.ws English Dictionary

short-hand

short-hand is the alternative form of shorthand.

Meaning of shorthand

Noun

shorthand (countable and uncountable, plural shorthands)

  1. A rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.
    • There is a Notion prevails among many People, to yͤ prejudice of all kinds of Short-hand; which is this. That when a Person sets down a Memorandum in his pocket Book in Short-hand, it is lost, in caſe of Death or any other accident, to yͤ rest of yͤ World, though it may contain things of great...1747 November 30, Aulay Macaulay, “Advertisement”, in Polygraphy or Short-hand Made Easy to the Meanest Capacity: Being an Universal Character Fitted to All Languages: […], London: Printed for the...
    Antonyms:
    longhand
  2. (broadly) Any brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.
    • The jargon becomes a shorthand for these advanced concepts.

See all 5 meanings of shorthand

Forms of short-hand

pluralshort-hands

Questions about short-hand

What is short-hand the alternative form of?
Short-hand is the alternative form of shorthand.

Words near short-hand in the dictionary

  1. short-grain
  2. short-grained
  3. short-haired
  4. short-haired bumblebee
  5. short-haired bumblebees
  6. short-hand
  7. short-handed
  8. short-handedly
  9. short-handedness
  10. short-hands
  11. short-haul

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: short-hand (page history and authors); shorthand (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “short-hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/short-hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.