Home / Words / shortenNo. 0252

shorten

/ˈʃɔːrtn/·verb

to make or become shorter
Fig. 1 — At eight the tree owns half the field — its shadow runs out long and thin, like something spilled.
01Definition

To shorten is the plain workhorse of making short: you shorten a rope, a speech, a journey, a name — and things shorten by themselves, as shadows do toward noon and days do toward winter. It asks for no tool and implies no judgement; where curtail cuts a thing below what it was owed and abridge trims a text to its essentials, shorten just reduces length — any length, in space or in time. It is the everyday verb the fancier ones are measured against.

02In use
  • iThe tailor shortened the trousers by a couple of centimetres.
  • iiAs autumn arrives, the days shorten and the evenings come sooner.
  • iiiA new bypass shortened the journey to the coast by forty minutes.
03Collocations
  • the days shorten
  • shorten the distance
  • shorten a speech
  • a shortened form
  • shorten the odds

Family short (adjective) · shortening (noun)

04Relations

=curtail, trim, abridge, truncate, cut

≠lengthen, extend, prolong

06TOEFL & IELTS

Its value is judgement-free reduction across every axis — length, duration, distance, names: Alexandra shortens to Alex, the days shorten in November, the new road shortens the commute. 'Shorten the odds' — make an outcome more likely — surfaces in sports and betting contexts in listening. In writing, reach for it when no nuance is needed, for curtail when rights or plans are cut below their due, and for abridge when the thing being cut is a text. Grammar: transitive and intransitive alike, no preposition required either way.

07Asked
Why is the baking fat called 'shortening'?
Because of what it does to dough: fat coats the flour and keeps gluten strands from linking into long, stretchy networks, so the strands stay short and the pastry bakes crumbly instead of chewy — 'short' has meant short-fibred in cookery for centuries, which is why shortbread is called shortbread. The noun predates any brand: lard and butter were shortenings long before supermarket tubs.
What does 'shorten the odds' mean?
To make an outcome more likely — and, at the bookmaker's, less rewarding. Odds of 10-to-1 shortening to 2-to-1 mean the horse is now fancied: the payout shrinks as the probability grows, which is the counterintuitive part for learners. Figuratively, anything that improves a chance shortens the odds — 'training shortens the odds of injury-free running'.
Why do days shorten after midsummer?
Because the Earth is tilted about 23.4 degrees, and after the June solstice your hemisphere begins leaning away from the sun, so its arc across the sky lowers and daylight is trimmed — a few seconds a day at first, then minutes, accelerating toward the equinox. The scene above plays the daily miniature of the same geometry: the higher the sun stands, the less shadow it leaves.
What is the difference between shorten and abbreviate?
Abbreviate is a specialist: it clips written forms — Doctor to Dr, United Kingdom to UK — and lives almost entirely in the world of words. Shorten is the general-purpose verb for every axis of length: hair, speeches, journeys, days, ropes. You can shorten a name to a nickname (Katherine to Kate); you abbreviate it only on paper.
When should I use curtail instead of shorten?
When the cut carries judgement. Shortening a visit is logistics — a plain fact about length; curtailing one implies circumstances forced it, and that somebody minded. Curtail is the formal register, and its objects skew to freedoms, rights and plans; shorten will take anything from a rope to a name. Each word has its own page on this site with the fuller picture.