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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

abbreviationitis en · NOUN

Etymology

From abbreviation + -itis.

Meanings

  1. (humorous, rare, uncountable) The excessive use of abbreviations.
    • We are evidently in for a bad patch of abbreviationitis. However, in the matter of chemical mechanisms we do seem to have passed the stage which could be referred to in general as OGIAGAA (one guess is as good as another). 1952, Science progress, volume 40, numbers 157-160:
    • (The New World guys chop off the ically ; maybe this lexie taciturnity led to the younger generation’s rampant abbreviationitis.) 2009 June 14, William Safire, “Dictionaurus”, in New York Times:
    • In the future, if this abbreviationitis continues, all makes of cameras and apparatus will be known by symbols and numbers instead of names. This regimentation will knock all the nonsense out of shopping. 1954, British journal of photography, volume 101:

Relateds

initialese · alphabet soup