shorten

1. 1.

   make shorter than originally intended; reduce or retrench in length or duration

   “He shortened his trip due to illness”

   Antonymslengthen

   Broaderreduce

   Narrowerforeshortenclipsyncopatetruncate
2. 2.

   reduce in scope while retaining essential elements

   “The manuscript must be shortened”

   Synonymsabridgeforeshortenabbreviatecutcontractreduce

   Broaderdecrease

   Narrowerbowdlerizedigest
3. 3.

   make short or shorter

   “shorten the skirt”

   “shorten the rope by a few inches”

   Broaderchange

   Narrowercut
4. 4.

   become short or shorter

   “In winter, the days shorten”

   Antonymslengthen

   Broaderdecrease
5. 5.

   edit by omitting or modifying parts considered indelicate

   “bowdlerize a novel”

   Synonymsbowdlerizebowdleriseexpurgatecastrate

   Broaderabridge

Other forms of shorten

past tense

shortenned·

present participle

shortenning·

third person

shortens·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about shorten

What does shorten mean?

shorten means "make shorter than originally intended; reduce or retrench in length or duration". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in shorten?

shorten has 2 syllables: shor-ten. The stress falls on "shor". In IPA it is /ˈʃɔɹtən/.

What is another word for shorten?

Close synonyms include abridge, foreshorten, abbreviate, cut, contract. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of shorten?

The recorded antonyms are lengthen, lengthen.

Is shorten a common word?

shorten is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.