Word Meanings - SHORTEN - Book Publishers vocabulary database

1. To make short or shorter in measure, extent, or time; as, to shorten distance; to shorten a road; to shorten days of calamity. 2. To reduce or diminish in amount, quantity, or extent; to lessen; to abridge; to curtail; to contract;

Additional info about word: SHORTEN

1. To make short or shorter in measure, extent, or time; as, to shorten distance; to shorten a road; to shorten days of calamity. 2. To reduce or diminish in amount, quantity, or extent; to lessen; to abridge; to curtail; to contract; as, to shorten work, an allowance of food, etc. Here, where the subject is so fruitful, I am shortened by my chain. Dryden. 3. To make deficient ; to deprive; -- with of. Spoiled of his nose, and shortened of his ears. Dryden. 4. To make short or friable, as pastry, with butter, lard, pot liquor, or the like. To shorten a rope , to take in the slack of it. -- To shorten sail , to reduce sail by taking it in.

Possible synonyms: (Same meaning words of SHORTEN)

• Abbreviate
• Shorten
• reduce
• abridge
• contract
• curtail
• epitomize
• condense
• prune
• compress
• Abridge
• diminish
• shorten
• lessen
• restrict
• tract
• Crop
• reap
• shave
• Diminish
• Lessen
• dwarf
• decrease
• subside
• abate
• retrench
• Lop
• Prune
• amputate
• truncate

Possible antonyms: (opposite words of SHORTEN)

• Expand
• amplify
• dilate
• elongate
• reverse
• cancel
• abandon
• Increase
• grow
• expand
• augment
• extend
• enlarge

Related words: (words related to SHORTEN)

• REVERSED
  Annulled and the contrary substituted; as, a reversed judgment or decree. Reversed positive or negative , a picture corresponding with the original in light and shade, but reversed as to right and left. Abney. (more info) 1. Turned side for side,
• DIMINISH
  To make smaller by a half step; to make less than minor; as, a diminished seventh. 4. To take away; to subtract. Neither shall ye diminish aught from it. Deut. iv. 2. Diminished column, one whose upper diameter is less than the lower.
• EPITOMIZER
  An epitomist. Burton.
• REDUCEMENT
  Reduction. Milton.
• TRACTORATION
  See PERKINISM
• ENLARGEMENT
  1. The act of increasing in size or bulk, real or apparent; the state of being increased; augmentation; further extension; expansion. 2. Expansion or extension, as of the powers of the mind; ennoblement, as of the feelings and character; as, an
• PRUNER
  Any one of several species of beetles whose larvæ gnaw the branches of trees so as to cause them to fall, especially the American oak pruner , whose larva eats the pith of oak branches, and when mature gnaws a circular furrow on the inside nearly
• RESTRICT
  Restricted.
• ABATER
  One who, or that which, abates.
• CONTRACTIBLE
  Capable of contraction. Small air bladders distable and contractible. Arbuthnot.
• TRACTITE
  A Tractarian.
• CANCELLATE
  Consisting of a network of veins, without intermediate parenchyma, as the leaves of certain plant; latticelike.
• DIMINISHER
  One who, or that which, diminishes anything. Clerke .
• DWARFLING
  A diminutive dwarf.
• REDUCE
  To bring to the metallic state by separating from impurities; hence, in general, to remove oxygen from; to deoxidize; to combine with, or to subject to the action of, hydrogen; as, ferric iron is reduced to ferrous iron; or metals are reduced from
• LESSENER
  One who, or that which, lessens. His wife . . . is the lessener of his pain, and the augmenter of his pleasure. J. Rogers .
• EXTENDLESSNESS
  Unlimited extension. An . . . extendlessness of excursions. Sir. M. Hale.
• CANCEL
  To suppress or omit; to strike out, as matter in type. Canceled figures , figures cast with a line across the face., as for use in arithmetics. Syn. -- To blot out; Obliterate; deface; erase; efface; expunge; annul; abolish; revoke; abrogate;
• CURTAILER
  One who curtails.
• DWARF
  An animal or plant which is much below the ordinary size of its species or kind; especially, a diminutive human being. Note: During the Middle Ages dwarfs as well as fools shared the favor of courts and the nobility. Note: Dwarf is used adjectively
• INTRACTABILITY
  The quality of being intractable; intractableness. Bp. Hurd.
• REINCREASE
  To increase again.
• REPRUNE
  To prune again or anew. Yet soon reprunes her wing to soar anew. Young.
• REDIMINISH
  To diminish again.
• SUBCONTRACTOR
  One who takes a portion of a contract, as for work, from the principal contractor.
• RETRACTOR
  One who, or that which, retracts. Specifically: In breech-loading firearms, a device for withdrawing a cartridge shell from the barrel.
• DETRACTIVE
  1. Tending to detractor draw. 2. Tending to lower in estimation; depreciative.
• OBTRUNCATE
  To deprive of a limb; to lop.
• INCOMPRESSIBLE
  Not compressible; incapable of being reduced by force or pressure into a smaller compass or volume; resisting compression; as, many liquids and solids appear to be almost incompressible. -- In`com*press"i*ble*ness, n.