SHORTEN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Shorten

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/ʃˈɔrtən/ Listen

verb

Shorten v. t. (past & past part. shortened; pres. part. shortening)

To make short or shorter in measure, extent, or time; as, to shorten distance; to shorten a road; to shorten days of calamity.

To reduce or diminish in amount, quantity, or extent; to lessen; to abridge; to curtail; to contract; as, to shorten work, an allowance of food, etc. "Here, where the subject is so fruitful, I am shortened by my chain."

To make deficient (as to); to deprive; with of. "Spoiled of his nose, and shortened of his ears."

To make short or friable, as pastry, with butter, lard, pot liquor, or the like.

To shorten a rope (Naut.), to take in the slack of it.

To shorten sail (Naut.), to reduce sail by taking it in.

Shorten v. i. To become short or shorter; as, the day shortens in northern latitudes from June to December; a metallic rod shortens by cold.

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Etymology of 'Shorten'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Shorten" Quotes from Famous Books

... from electric motive power will be made; and Newark, N. J. Many other places, including the seaside resorts on Long Island and in New Jersey, will feel the benefits of the direct tunnel railroad into and through New York City. The Glendale Cut-Off will materially shorten the route and running time from New York through ...

— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond

... afternoon, his strength returned. A certain hero discovered the secret of Tukaitawa's strength and slew him at noon. The savage Besisis of the Malay Peninsula fear to bury their dead at noon, because they fancy that the shortness of their shadows at that hour would sympathetically shorten their ...

— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... understanding, and then all the three quicken the imagination, and then all the four strengthen the resolution; while yet there is a danger, on the other hand, that the encouraged and morbid feeling may weaken or bias the understanding, or that the over shrewd and keen understanding may shorten the imagination, or that the understanding and imagination together may take place of, or undermine, the resolution, as in Hamlet. So in the mere bodily frame there is a delightful perfection of the senses, consistent with the utmost health ...

— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... Expected good snacks, at the end of the feast: The first at the gate, as a centinel stood; The last kept the Rats and the Mice from the food. The crowd of strange quadrupeds seen at the ball, 'Twere tedious and needless to mention them all; To shorten the story, suffice it to say Some scores, nay some hundreds, ...

— The Elephant's Ball, and Grand Fete Champetre • W. B.

... "oppressors of Israel." Israel was called on to suffer under Roman rule, and the righteous to endure violence at the hands of the wicked, for that was the will of God, who in his own good time would shorten the evil days. But the manipulation of the sacrificial system as a means of plundering the pious was a sin of Israel itself, against which, protest and force were justified. What the heathen and the wicked do is their concern and God's, but ...

— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake

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