shorten
/ˈʃɔːt(ə)n
/verb
1Make or become shorter: [with object]: he shortened his stride patients whose waiting time had been shortened [no object]: as skirts shortened, so heels rose around mid September, days shorten and temperatures dip...
- Do you think Setta needs to shorten his stride when approaching the ball on field goals?
- In the fall and as winter approaches, the days shorten and temperatures drop.
- With less flexibility at the hip and ankle, your stride will shorten.
Synonyms
make shorter, abbreviate, abridge, condense, precis, synopsize, contract, compress, reduce, lessen, shrink, decrease, diminish, cut, cut down, cut short, dock, trim, clip, crop, pare down, prune;
curtail, truncate;
turn up, take up
get shorter, grow shorter, grow less, contract, compress, shrink
1.1(With reference to gambling odds) make or become shorter; decrease: [with object]: Ladbrokes shortened Nashwan’s odds from 2-1 to 7-4 [no object]: the odds had shortened to 14-1...
- Bookmaker William Hill reported more bets than ever for the annual festive flutter and shortened the odds.
- But counting the odds never shortened them, and he sighed and shook himself.
- This shortens the odds for the other pub winners as far as the grand prize of a digital camera goes with two absentee winners not going into the draw.
1.2 [with object] Prosody & Phonetics Make (a vowel or syllable) short: the preceding vowels are shortened...
- Leaving Rome and heading south or east, you find a tendency of shortening non-stressed vowels and reducing them to schwas.
2 [with object] Sailing Reduce the amount of (sail spread): before sail could be shortened she went on to her beam ends...
- He hung a lamp on the mast and shortened the sail, but it was past midnight when Setisia retired to the cabin.
