abridger

English

Etymology

abridge + -er

Pronunciation

  • (US) IPA(key): /əˈbɹɪ.d͡ʒɚ/
    • (file)

Noun

abridger (plural abridgers)

  1. One who abridges. [First attested in the mid 16th century.][1]
    • 1817 December, [Jane Austen], chapter V, in Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. [], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, [], 1818, OCLC 318384910:
      [] while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
    • 1985, Carol Shields, “Accidents” in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, 2004, p. 47,
      I am an abridger. When I tell people, at a party for instance, that I am an abridger, their faces cloud with confusion and I always have to explain. What I do is take the written work of other people and compress it.

Translations

References

  1. Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief; William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abridger”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 8.

Anagrams

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