Abbreviate vs Simplify - What's the difference?
abbreviate | simplify |
(obsolete) To shorten by omitting parts or details.
* (rfdate) :
(obsolete) To speak or write in a brief manner.
To make shorter; to shorten; to abridge; to shorten by ending sooner than planned.
To reduce a word or phrase by means of contraction or omission to a shorter recognizable form.
(mathematics) To reduce to lower terms, as a fraction.
(obsolete) Abbreviated; abridged; shortened.
*
(biology) Having one part relatively shorter than another or than the ordinary type.
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To make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand.
To become simpler.
* 2006 , Karen Oslund, “Reading Backwards: Language Politics and Cultural Identity in Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia”, in David L. Hoyt and Karen Oslund (editors), The Study of Language and the Politics of Community in Global Context , Lexington Books, ISBN 978-0-7391-0955-7, page 126:
In lang=en terms the difference between abbreviate and simplify
is that abbreviate is to reduce a word or phrase by means of contraction or omission to a shorter recognizable form while simplify is to make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand.As verbs the difference between abbreviate and simplify
is that abbreviate is (obsolete|transitive) to shorten by omitting parts or details while simplify is to make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand.As an adjective abbreviate
is (obsolete) abbreviated; abridged; shortened .As a noun abbreviate
is (obsolete) an abridgment .abbreviate
English
Etymology 1
* Either' from (etyl) abbreviaten, from (etyl) . * See abridge.Verb
(abbreviat)- It is one thing to abbreviate by contracting, another by cutting off.
Synonyms
* shortenAntonyms
* lengthenEtymology 2
* From .Adjective
(en adjective)References
simplify
English
Verb
(en-verb)- Thus, throughout the nineteenth century, linguists generally held that more grammatically complex languages were older and that languages tended to simplify over time—the four grammatical cases of German as contrasted with the seven of Latin, for example.