ABBREVIATION, strictly a shortening; more particularly, an "abbreviation" is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent it or them for the sake of brevity. Abbreviations, both of single words and of phrases, having a meaning more or less fixed and recognized, were common in ancient writings and inscriptions (see PALAEOGRAPHY) and very many are in use at the present time. The commonest form of abbreviation is the substitution for a word of its initial letter; but one or more of the other letters are frequently added. Letters are often doubled to indicate a plural or a superlative.
There is no occasion to explain here the common abbreviations used for Christian names, books of Scripture, points of the corn pass, grammatical and mathematical terms, etc. For a list of abbreviations of the chemical elements see ATOMIC WEIGHTS.
The list of abbreviations that follows are those now in use.