shortening

American  

[shawrt-ning, shawr-tn-ing] / ˈʃɔrt nɪŋ, ˈʃɔr tn ɪŋ /

noun

1. butter, lard, or other fat, used to make pastry, bread, etc., short.

2. Phonetics. the act, process, or an instance of making or becoming short.

3. Linguistics.

   1. the act or process of dropping one or more syllables from a word or phrase to form a shorter word with the same meaning, as in forming piano from pianoforte or phone from telephone.

   2. clipped form.

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shortening British  

/ ˈʃɔːtənɪŋ /

noun

1. butter, lard, or other fat, used in a dough, cake mixture, etc, to make the mixture short

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Etymology

Origin of shortening

First recorded in 1535–45; shorten + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

In endogamous populations, such variants can occur 100 to 1,000 times as often as in more outbred populations, shortening the time and cost required to find them.

From The Wall Street Journal

First, particularly pertinent to current concerns, is thar “creative destruction operates more rapidly,” shortening the time a company may remain large and competitive enough to stay in the S&P 500.

From MarketWatch

HKEx is also dedicated to improving its market's structure and efficiency, including shortening stock clearing time, she said.

From Barron's

I also tried shortening my days to seven hours instead of 10.

From MarketWatch

Carvana has been trying to widen its supply of available cars for sale, while speeding up delivery times to customers and shortening shipping distances.

From MarketWatch