SHORT'ENING, participle present tense Making shorter; contracting. SHORT'ENING, noun Something used in cookery to make paste short or friable, as butter or lard. SHORT'-HAND, noun [short amd hand.] Short writing; a compendious method of writing by substituting characters, abbreviations or symbols for words; otherwise called stenography.
Source: Webster's 1828 American Dictionary ↗ · public-domain · returned verbatim, no AI