Abbreviation meaning : The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment. A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase, used to represent the whole, utilizing omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as +, =, @. The process of abbreviating. A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf. One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole. Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern. Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.