- 1
To abridge a book, a play, or a speech is to make it shorter on purpose, while trying to keep the main story and the main meaning. An editor might abridge a long novel so younger readers can finish it; a radio show might abridge a speech to fit the time. The cut is not random: the bones stay, the extra flesh goes. It is a , slightly formal verb. In speech people more often say “” or “cut down.” Though actually, abridging can still change how a book feels — even when the plot is there — because the small scenes that gave it its voice are often the first to go. And despite how it looks on the page, this word has nothing to do with a bridge over water.
刪節、節錄（把書或劇本改短，但留下主要內容）
組成from Middle English abreggen, from Old French abreger, from Late Latin abbreviāre, “make brief.” It is a doublet of abbreviate: same Latin parent, two English children. It is not from the word “bridge.”
同家族的字
- abbreviatesame Latin parent; you abbreviate a word, but you abridge a whole book or speech
- abridgedthe adjective for a book someone has abridged
- abridgementthe shorter book, or the act of making it shorter
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Abridgename
- 1
A village in Essex, England.
abridgeverb/əˈbɹɪd͡ʒ/
- 1
archaicTo deprive; to cut off.
- 2
archaicrareTo debar from.
- 3
To make shorter; to shorten in duration or extent.
- She retired her self to Sebaste, and abridged her train from State to necessity.
- The bridegroom, perceiving his condition, abridged the visit […]
- 4
To shorten or contract by using fewer words, yet retaining the sense; to epitomize; to condense.
- It was still necessary for the man who had been formerly saluted by the highest authority as dictator of the English language to supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edition of Shakespeare by subscription, and many subscribers sent in their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employments.
- Such an episode in the Island's grand naval story her naval historians naturally abridge; one of them (G.P.R. James) candidly acknowledging that fain would he pass it over did not "impartiality forbid fastidiousness."
- 5
Cut short; truncate.
- 6
To curtail.
- He had his rights abridged by the crooked sheriff.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。