一日一词【1】abbreviate

abbreviate

abbreviate和brief的词根都是拉丁语brevis，意为short。abbreviate就是make briefer，make shorter(缩短，缩略)的意思。例如：

Her essay was an abbreviated version of a talk she gave last week.
她的文章是她上周一次讲话的摘要。

Dozen is often abbreviated into “doz”.
dozen常缩略为“doz”。

Don’t be afraid to abbreviate. You should cut a paragraph here and shorten one there.
别怕缩短文章。你应该把这段删去，把那段缩短一些。

Abbreviate的名词是abbreviation，意为“缩略词”。常见的abbreviations可分三种：第一种称为acronym (首字母组合词)，即由一个短语中每一个词的首字母构成的词。例如：VIP = very important person (贵宾)；NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization (北大西洋公约组织)。第二种为clipped word (缩略词)，只保留原词中的一部分。例如：examination缩成exam(考试)； laboratory缩成lab (实验室)。 第三种是contractions (缩约词)，是通过略去一个单词或短语的某一部分面构成。常见的有can’t ( = cannot)，you’d ( = you had )等。