shorthand

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A rough and rapid method of writing by substituting symbols for letters, words, etc.

   “All ſhort Hands are ſubject to Ambiguity; for there being but 8 Marks to repreſent 24 Letters, and thoſe 8 being uſed for 8 of them in the Short Hand Alphabets, the other Letters muſt be deſcribed by Characters compounded of theſe 8.”

   “A is denoted by a dot at the top of the Short-hand line; [...] The vowel a, in Short-hand, is used for the article a, or ah; [...]”

   “[...] I was soon convinced, that our articles a an the should also be omitted: especially as the two former are comparatively infrequent, and the latter a perpetual incumbrance in other Short-hands.”

   “In writing shorthand words are always to be spelled as they are sounded, and without any regard to orthography.”

2. (broadly, countable, uncountable)Any brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.

   “The jargon becomes a shorthand for these advanced concepts.”

   “It is important to recall that the European construct of "the Indian" and the abstraction designated as "Native American religion" are both artificial labels suggesting a unity that is nowhere to be found. When we borrow such shorthands, we are really referring to the Arapaho, Blackfeet, Chumash, Delaware, Eskimo, Flathead, Ghost Dancers, Hopi, Iowa—and so on through the rest of the alphabet right to the Yuma and Zuni.”

   “Trust me, he's Pakistani, because that's the average numpty's shorthand for Muslim.”

   “You shouldn't use the shorthand PHP tags (<? ?>) in your code. The reason for this is that shorthand PHP tags must be enabled on your server before they will function. Many hosting configurations have this feature disabled by default, which means your plugin would immediately break when activated in WordPress.”

   “Her [Kate Spade's] name became a shorthand for the cute, clever bags that were an instant hit with cosmopolitan women in the early stages of their careers and, later, young girls – status symbols of a more attainable, all-American sort than a Fendi clutch or Chanel bag.”

verb

1. (transitive)To render (spoken or written words) into shorthand.

   “All the time she'd pretended to be fiddling with her purse over there behind the man, she'd been shorthanding him down—every word, every quotation, every date, every name.”

   “Most everything is in the safe on digital media, but there were some sessions he didn't record. He'd just shorthanded his notes during and after the sessions. I never learned shorthand, so there's no way I could decipher most of it, if you know what I mean.”

2. (broadly, transitive)To use a brief or shortened way of saying or doing something.

   “It seems to me, however one looks at it—and I am torpedoing, "shorthanding", my arguments, though they can be developed at great length—that there is no military case for a large standing Army, and I pick out three arguments that I think are tremendously important which I should like the Minister to answer, even though he may reject them.”

   “By "home video" I mean to shorthand the practice of viewing at home texts that come to us via a range of sources and formats, such as cable/satellite and pay-per-view television, mail order services (that send in the mail gay-related videotapes to far-flung subscribers), Web-based media, videotapes, laser discs, and dvds.”

   “He liked [John Dann] MacDonald's books: You could always tell who the villainesses were because the narrator made a point of noting they had fat asses. It was as good a way as any to shorthand the world, he thought.”

   “[Dan] Brown shorthands the argument that Freemasonry really is inclusive through the personas and characters of Katherine Solomon and Warren Bellamy.”

   “She watched as Trooper pulled out a pack of cigarettes and fumbled in his pocket for a lighter, an expensive-looking Zippo with the number 88 engraved on the front plate – each eight standing for the eighth letter of the alphabet, the two Hs together shorthanding the phrase 'Heil Hitler'.”

3. (intransitive)To write in shorthand.

   “Steele nodded and settled on the chesterfield. He regarded Betty seriously, her notebook poised on the table beside her as she reclined in her chair. [...] "I remember," Betty acknowledged, and went on shorthanding.”