Simplify vs Abridge - What's the difference?
simplify | abridge |
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:
(archaic) To deprive; to cut off.
(transitive, archaic, rare) To debar from.
To make shorter; to shorten in duration or extent.
* The bridegroom ... abridged his visit. - Smollett
* She retired herself to Sebaste, and abridged her train from state to necessity. - Fuller
To shorten or contract by using fewer words, yet retaining the sense; to epitomize; to condense; as, to abridge a history or dictionary.
Cut short; truncate.
To curtail.
In lang=en terms the difference between simplify and abridge
is that simplify is to make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand while abridge is to curtail .As verbs the difference between simplify and abridge
is that simplify is to make simpler, either by reducing in complexity, reducing to component parts, or making easier to understand while abridge is (archaic) to deprive; to cut off .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.
Derived terms
* oversimplify * simplification * simplifier English ergative verbsabridge
English
Verb
(abridg)- He had his rights abridged by the crooked sheriff.
