shortening

American  

[shawrt-ning, shawr-tn-ing] / ˈʃɔrt nɪŋ, ˈʃɔr tn ɪŋ /

noun

1. butter, lard, or other fat, used to make pastry, bread, etc., short.

2. Phonetics. the act, process, or an instance of making or becoming short.

3. Linguistics.

   1. the act or process of dropping one or more syllables from a word or phrase to form a shorter word with the same meaning, as in forming piano from pianoforte or phone from telephone.

   2. clipped form.

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shortening British  

/ ˈʃɔːtənɪŋ /

noun

1. butter, lard, or other fat, used in a dough, cake mixture, etc, to make the mixture short

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Etymology

Origin of shortening

First recorded in 1535–45; shorten + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

It has already partnered with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Genmab with the aim of shortening drug development life cycles.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026

"AI transforms a 'needle-in-a-haystack' search into a data-driven selection process, drastically shortening the timeframe between diagnosis and vaccine construction," he said.

From Barron's • Mar. 30, 2026

I also tried shortening my days to seven hours instead of 10.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 25, 2026

The report also raised concerns about shortening the first meeting Universal Credit claimants have with a work coach from 50 to 30 minutes.

From BBC • Jan. 8, 2026

Some scholars believe there is a direct link between the advent of cooking, the shortening of the human intestinal track, and the growth of the human brain.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari