Abbreviation

An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, meaning "short"^[1]) is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym) or crasis.

An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word with a trailing period. For example: etcetera is usually abbreviated etc. and abbreviation is sometimes abbreviated abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.. But sometimes the trailing period is not used for such shortened forms.

A contraction is an abbreviation formed by replacing letters with an apostrophe. Examples include I'm for I am and li'l for little.

An initialism is an abbreviation consisting of the initial letter of a sequence of words without other punctuation. For example, FBI (/ˌɛf.biːˈaɪ/), USA (/ˌjuː.ɛsˈeɪ/), IBM (/ˌaɪ.biːˈɛm/), BBC (/ˌbiː.biːˈsiː/).

A subset of initialism is, an acronym is pronounced as a word instead of pronouncing each letter. For example SWAT and NASA.

Initialisms, contractions and crasis share some semantic and phonetic functions, and are connected by the term abbreviation in loose parlance.^[2]^: p167

^ "brevis/breve, brevis M". Latin is Simple Online Dictionary. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
^ Ritter, R M (2005). New Hart's Rules: The handbook of style for writers and editors. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198610410. OCLC 225098030.

[1] "brevis/breve, brevis M". Latin is Simple Online Dictionary. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2018.

[harts-2] Ritter, R M (2005). New Hart's Rules: The handbook of style for writers and editors. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198610410. OCLC 225098030.

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