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Definition of shortening : 1. of Shorten
2. That which renders pastry short or friable, as butter, lard, etc.
3. The act of making or becoming short or shorter.

Synonyms:

decreasing, eroding, draining, deducting, abating, dwindling, depleting, decrementing, concentrating, compressing, shrinking, lowering, dying down, truncating, abridging, contracting, deflating, curtailing, lessening, subsiding, receding, compacting, abbreviating, diminishing

depressing, plunging, submerging, dropping, deepening

belittling

cropping, clipping, nipping, downgrading, pruning, paring, trimming, shaving, condensing, culling, shearing, weeding, bobbing, lightening, tapering

fragmenting, discontinuing, reducing, minimizing

Usage examples:

• Make the tree as even as you can by shortening leading shoots on opposite sides.
• This, however, is not all; Canada, in the hope of gaining part of the commerce of the Great Lakes for the St. Lawrence, has proposed a canal by way of Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River, thus shortening the lake route by five hundred miles. - "The Niagara River", Archer Butler Hulbert.
• The captain's great aim was to get the ship's company into good order, and we were continually exercising the guns and shortening and making sail. - "The Loss of the Royal George", W.H.G. Kingston.