Noah Webster
Abbreviate
ABBRE'VIATE, verb transitive [from Latin abbrevio, brevio, from brevis, short]
1. To shorten; to make shorter by contracting the parts. [In this sense, not much used, nor often applied to material substances.]
2. To shorten; to abridge by the omission or defalcation of a part; to reduce to a smaller compass; as to abbreviate a writing.
3. In mathematics, to reduce fractions to the lowest terms.