Abridger

//əˈbɹɪ.d͡ʒɚ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who abridges, a person who shortens written works.

    "[…] 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."

  2. 2
    one who shortens or abridges or condenses a written work wordnet

Example

More examples

"[…] 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."

Etymology

From abridge + -er.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.