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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Abridge

Abridge \A*bridge"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Abridged; p. pr. & vb. n. Abridging.] [OE. abregen, OF. abregier, F. abr['e]ger, fr. L. abbreviare; ad + brevis short. See Brief and cf. Abbreviate.]

  1. To make shorter; to shorten in duration; to lessen; to diminish; to curtail; as, to abridge labor; to abridge power or rights. ``The bridegroom . . . abridged his visit.''
    --Smollett.

    She retired herself to Sebaste, and abridged her train from state to necessity.
    --Fuller.

  2. To shorten or contract by using fewer words, yet retaining the sense; to epitomize; to condense; as, to abridge a history or dictionary.

  3. To deprive; to cut off; -- followed by of, and formerly by from; as, to abridge one of his rights.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
abridge

c.1300, abreggen, "to make shorter, to condense," from Old French abregier "abridge, diminish, shorten," from Late Latin abbreviare "make short" (see abbreviate). The sound development from Latin -vi- to French -dg- is paralleled in assuage (from assuavidare) and deluge (from diluvium). Related: Abridged; abridging.

Wiktionary
abridge

vb. 1 (context transitive archaic English) To deprive; to cut off. (First attested from around (1150 to 1350))(R:SOED5: page=8) 2 (context transitive archaic rare English) To debar from. (First attested from around (1150 to 1350)) 3 (context transitive English) To make shorter; to shorten in duration or extent. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470)) 4 (context transitive English) To shorten or contract by using fewer words, yet retaining the sense; to epitomize; to condense; as, to '''abridge''' a history or dictionary. (First attested in 1384.)(R:CDOE: page=4). (First attested from around (1350 to 1470)) 5 (context transitive English) Cut short; truncate. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470)) 6 (context transitive English) To curtail. (First attested from around (1350 to 1470))

WordNet
abridge

v. reduce in scope while retaining essential elements; "The manuscript must be shortened" [syn: foreshorten, abbreviate, shorten, cut, contract, reduce] [ant: elaborate]

Wikipedia
Abridge

Abridge is a village in Essex, England. It is on the River Roding, southwest of the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Epping Forest and in the parliamentary constituency of Brentwood and Ongar. It is part of the civil parish of Lambourne and is served by Lambourne Parish Council.

It takes its name from the brick bridge over the River Roding, which is situated just to the north of the modern centre, on the road to Theydon Bois.

Usage examples of "abridge".

I have expiated with pleasure on the first steps of the crusaders, as they paint the manners and character of Europe: but I shall abridge the tedious and uniform narrative of their blind achievements, which were performed by strength and are described by ignorance.

They appeal with confidence to the Persian history of Sherefeddin Ali, which has been given to our curiosity in a French version, and from which I shall collect and abridge a more specious narrative of this memorable transaction.

The Constitution does not authorize Congress to enlarge or abridge those rights.

Congress would be authorized to abridge it, in favour of the great principles of humanity and justice.

A State statute which forbids bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, does not abridge the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Court, in conformity with the aforementioned theories of economics and evolution, was in fact committed to the principle that freedom of contract is the general rule and that legislative authority to abridge the same could be justified only by exceptional circumstances.

However, the Supreme Court declined to sustain Congress when, under the guise of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment by appropriate legislation, it enacted a statute which was not limited to take effect only in case a State should abridge the privileges of United States citizens, but applied no matter how well the State might have performed its duty, and would subject to punishment private individuals who conspired to deprive anyone of the equal protection of the laws.

To punish the exercise of this right to discuss public affairs or to penalize it through libel judgments is to abridge or shut off discussion of the very kind most needed.

Black and Brennan had always believed that the Constitution guaranteed all those rights to American citizens and that state legislatures could not abridge them.

Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the political economist combines labour, let them beware that their speculations, for want of correspondence with those first principles which belong to the imagination, do not tend, as they have in modern England, to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want.

The laws which excuse, on any occasions, the ignorance of their subjects, confess their own imperfections: the civil jurisprudence, as it was abridged by Justinian, still continued a mysterious science, and a profitable trade, and the innate perplexity of the study was involved in tenfold darkness by the private industry of the practitioners.

If he wept at the sight of an old tapestry which represented the crime and punishment of the son of Chosroes, if his days were abridged by grief and remorse, we may allow some pity to a parricide, who exclaimed, in the bitterness of death, that he had lost both this world and the world to come.

Venice edition of the Councils contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they are abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and Fleury.

These original and authentic acts I have translated and abridged with freedom, yet with fidelity.

Lenfant has abridged and compared the original narratives of the adherents of Urban and Clement, of the Italians and Germans, the French and Spaniards.