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Word Shortenings #1

Can you guess the long form of these shortened words?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 25, 2025
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First submittedJanuary 3, 2012
Times taken124,380
Average score81.5%
Rating4.26
5:00
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 / 27 guessed
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Short
Long Version
Hippo
Hippopotamus
Photo
Photograph
Math
Mathematics
Ad
Advertisement
Admin
Administrator
Ammo
Ammunition
Phone
Telephone
Info
Information
Intro
Introduction
Short
Long Version
Limo
Limousine
Max
Maximum
Memo
Memorandum
Rehab
Rehabilitation
Sax
Saxophone
Ump
Umpire
Veggie
Vegetable
Vocab
Vocabulary
Blog
Weblog
Short
Long Version
Flu
Influenza
Camo
Camouflage
Chimp
Chimpanzee
Disco
Discotheque
Tux
Tuxedo
Deli
Delicatessen
Fax
Facsimile
Piano
Pianoforte
Celeb
Celebrity
102 Recent Comments
+4
Level 31
Jan 7, 2012
I've witnessed people saying zine instead of magazine often enough to be aware of this word, so I can assure you that this isn't something the quizmaster made up ;)

But "ump"... Just the mention of sports make me yawn, so for all I know, it could have been made up for the purpose of this quiz :D (that is what the referee is called in certain sports, right?)

+2
Level 16
Oct 1, 2012
Yeah, it's in baseball. An umpire is the person who calls "safe" or "out" and all that jazz!
+2
Level 30
Jun 5, 2016
Tennis as well, didn't know about baseball
+2
Level 60
Jun 23, 2016
There's also an umpire in football.
+1
Level 68
May 8, 2022
But everyone calls them a referee.
+2
Level 37
Nov 28, 2020
Cricket, Softball, and Baseball are the main well known ones
+1
Level 73
Mar 28, 2025
I know it from tennis.
+5
Level 60
Jan 10, 2012
I knew Discotheque because I did French at school...
+3
Level 37
Jan 18, 2012
Damn memo, i tried memorendom, just making a word up, didn't realise i was so close!!
+1
Level 39
Feb 3, 2012
Can we just get rid of blogs so we don't have to worry about there abbreviations?
+12
Level 30
Jun 5, 2016
Can we just get rid of bad grammar so we don't have to worry about correcting it?
+2
Level 15
Mar 26, 2012
25/30 not bad for the first time.
+2
Level 43
Sep 7, 2012
Blog is not really a shorten version of a word but a portmanteau, which is a combination of words forming a new word using sounds from each original word.
+12
Level 68
Dec 9, 2016
blog is still the short form of the portmanteau "weblog"
+5
Level 43
Sep 7, 2012
Never heard zine used, but have heard of mag as a shorten version of magazine.
+1
Level 67
Sep 14, 2012
I almost missed Discotheque!!!
+2
Level 22
Sep 14, 2012
Oh lol. Couldn't spell Vet (animal doctor), Lab (not the dog) and Camo. XD!
+1
Level 8
Sep 14, 2012
I spelt tuxedo tuxido and i knew the answer so can u make tuxido an acceptable answer
+3
Level 45
Dec 8, 2017
and camoflauge
+6
Level 78
Apr 1, 2025
How about instead you two learn from your spelling mistakes instead of wanting validation for being wrong?
+10
Level 37
Sep 14, 2012
zine???? everyone shortens magazine to 'mag' ... not 'zine'
+1
Level 33
Jan 13, 2013
agreed
+1
Level 16
Oct 1, 2012
Great quiz! Feel like a nerd cause I got all these...with 4:06 to spare.
+1
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
all were very easy but memo... I did not get that one... tried all sort of stuff like memorynote, memoires etc
+1
Level 53
Apr 5, 2025
Don't know if this will be helpful or merely pedantic, but "memorandum" is the Latin for "memorize" plus a suffix meaning "to be x" (so "to be remembered"). Similar words in English are "addendum" ("to be added"), "referendum" ("to be referred back"), and "agenda" ("to be done"--with the change from "-um" to "-a" making it plural--"things to be done").
+21
Level 33
Jan 13, 2013
Never heard "Zine" for magazine.
+3
Level 68
Aug 18, 2016
Same.
+2
Level 20
Apr 24, 2013
gym could also be gymnastics, that's what we use it for over here?
+2
Level 65
Jan 18, 2018
yeah but you go to the gym but not do gym
+2
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
In my country that is exactly what you do, and I think that is the same for talia/ seems to be what talia is saying aswell.
+1
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
ps we dont go to the gym ( that sounds so weird, you have gymclass as a kid at school)>> The place you go to work out is a sportschool.

We have the word gymnaseum as a (direction of) school. If you have latin and greek on your curriculum.

Btw all these words come from the same place and is a "school" where the ancient greek (besides learning) used to excercise, naked. It literally means, place to be naked.

+1
Level 36
Sep 26, 2013
i got 28 out of 30.
+1
Level 15
Jan 29, 2014
I didn't get some because I couldn't spell them. I need to go back to school I guess. D:
+2
Level 67
Mar 14, 2014
I can't believe I got 29/30 but managed to miss "Ad".

*facepalm*

+6
Level 39
Apr 19, 2014
I kept trying to type Ammunation for Ammunition! Grand Theft Auto has seeped too far into my brain...
+1
Level 57
May 4, 2014
got all except ump, ive never heard that used and i dont know what an umpire is.
+1
Level 51
Jul 1, 2015
An umpire is a referee.
+2
Level 30
Jun 5, 2016
Referee for Tennis and apparently Baseball too. Probably some others...
+2
Level 37
Aug 20, 2014
I would agree with EVERYONE ELSE that zine is short for fanzine, not magazine. "I-I-I-I-I-I wanna publish zines! And rage against machines!" Harvey Danger was talking fanzines there.
+1
Level 17
Nov 26, 2014
25/30
+3
Level 68
Jan 23, 2015
I missed phone but got discotheque. What am I doing with my life?
+3
Level 44
Jan 23, 2015
I missed the phone call on this.. I kept trying phonogram.. facepalm!
+1
Level 81
Jan 23, 2015
All too easy.
+1
Level 60
Jan 23, 2015
Missed memo and rehab
+3
Level 38
Jan 23, 2015
I got all of them pretty quickly... except "phone". I could not for the life of me think of the word "telephone". I even tried "phonograph" :/
+4
Level 21
Apr 11, 2015
Oops, put Saxyphone, not Saxophone.
+8
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
sexyphone..
+4
Level 60
Jun 9, 2015
Can you accept camoflauge
+3
Level 51
Jul 1, 2015
That's exactly how I spelled it for years. It seems more phonetic. Took me forever to remember the correct spelling.
+1
Level 74
Aug 19, 2021
Ok now that just sounds silly
+1
Level 39
Mar 31, 2025
not really, considering how many 'silly' spellings the english language has (there's more if you don't take simplified american spellings into account)
+4
Level 51
Jul 1, 2015
I had no idea before what blog and disco were short for. Honestly, I had no idea they were short for anything (though I knew what they were). Got the rest.
+1
Level 75
Nov 23, 2015
Easy peasy and fun for me.
+1
Level 75
Mar 31, 2025
Ten years later not as easy but eventually got them all. The spelling of disco nearly did me in.
+3
Level 31
Dec 30, 2015
"weblog" was the death of me...
+1
Level 46
Jan 18, 2016
100 percent in 3 34
+1
Level 46
Jan 18, 2016
IT RELOADED IN THE FINAL QUESTION
+10
Level 45
Aug 28, 2016
Panic! at the Discotheque
+1
Level 51
Nov 26, 2016
3.24 left; found this one pretty straight forward, just clumsy typing fingers
+3
Level 70
Feb 14, 2017
It has been commented on several times, but MAG is short for magazine except in some weird underworld where everyone says ZINE.
+1
Level 57
Feb 14, 2017
ad can also be anno domine
+1
Level 28
Feb 22, 2017
Ok, so it was easy... I got 2 wrongs, but I don't accept it. I MEAN LIKE, who the heck calls Magazines Zines?
+1
Level 57
Mar 10, 2017
I has 73% and only got 2 points
+1
Level 66
Mar 29, 2017
Ha. Get 'em all....but it took a minute for "admin" cuz I kept thinking of college admin being the administration building....not administrator. Oh, well.....Oh, and zine was easy; rarely used but I've see it enough to know what it meant.
+1
Level 32
Nov 9, 2017
If you are including hippo, you have to include rhino.
+6
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
why? these arent all the abbreviations in the world, and hippo is legitimately there..
+3
Level 33
May 24, 2018
Never knew there was such a thing as a 'discotheque'. I heard it as 'disco' 100% of the time. Guess that is one new word into my English vocabulary.
+3
Level 73
Jun 17, 2019
*mouth dropped to the floor emoji* almost noone knows what blog is ??? in this time that it is so common ( when blogs and the word for it first came into use I can understand. but now every 6 yo seems to blog or vlog ( videoblog... now you know that one too...)
+10
Level 75
Dec 5, 2019
I think the word blog took over so fast that a lot of people never realized it was short for anything, they just assumed it was a made up word.
+1
Level 73
Mar 29, 2025
Perhaps that is it. Though the close relation and resemblance to the word log, would get people thinking wouldn't it? What are the odds of a completely random made up word having similar form ánd function as an already existing one? I guess I am biased because I am always interested in the origin of words. (So when a new one enters the scene of course I would like to know how it came to be. Though I generally delve into older words of which the origins are all but forgotten and not easily spotted at first sight)
+1
Level 67
Jun 27, 2019
Smashed it, but being an Aussie helps with all that slang.
+1
Level 80
Dec 5, 2019
Arrgghhh.... Got 29/30 - I missed 'blog' but typed in 'web blog' - so close!!
+2
Level 71
Dec 5, 2019
Great quiz! We need more like this.

However, "vocab" should be the first clue.

+1
Level 42
Apr 13, 2020
I had no idea that blog stood for weblog!
+1
Level 83
Jul 3, 2020
Many people who own Landrover Discovery motor vehicles call their car a 'Disco'. Right or wrong, they do.
+2
Level 83
Dec 2, 2021
I think that the time you'd save by saying "ump" instead of "umpire" would be vastly less than the time you'd lose having to explain what the hell you were talking about.
+1
Level 58
Apr 1, 2025
True dat
+1
Level 82
Apr 18, 2022
Very fun--I especially enjoyed the ones that had more than one answer.
+1
Level 58
May 8, 2022
I put chimpansee about 10 times and never realized it's spelled chimpanzee in English
+1
Level 67
Mar 26, 2025
Isn't saxophone itself short for saxomaphone? ;-)
+1
Level 91
Mar 26, 2025
If Homer Simpson is to be believed ;)
+3
Level 92
Mar 26, 2025
Mathematics.

It’s plural.

Do the grammar…

+2
Level 74
Mar 26, 2025
Would never have gotten Delicatessen, learned something new
+2
Level 86
Mar 27, 2025
Does piano fit in this list? Piano is a shortening of pianoforte, but only when you change languages. Pianoforte is an Italian word, not an English word. Piano is the English word. I feel like the rest of these are shortening within the same language.
+2
Level 83
Mar 27, 2025
pretty sure they were originally known as "pianoforte" or "fortepiano" in English?
+3
Level 75
Mar 31, 2025
If you watch English period movies, such as Sense and Sensibility, they’re usually called pianofortes. In her books, Jane Austen spells it pianoforte’.
+1
Level 78
Apr 2, 2025
The instruments they used at that time were different from what we call pianos now. They are rightly called by two different names, not just a longer version of the same name.
+1
Level 28
Mar 27, 2025
Missed blog and piano. Never heard of either of their full names.
+1
Level 72
Mar 28, 2025
Know words "advertisement", "chimpanze" and "faximile" but failed to write them correctly.

I know pianoforte as "fortepiano", now I know the English word.

+1
Level 72
Mar 31, 2025
Allow delikatessen and delicacy?
+3
Level 74
Mar 31, 2025
Why? They're wrong
+2
Level 75
Mar 31, 2025
I grow Delikatesse cucumbers, and they are a German heirloom variety, so I’m guessing that’s the German origin of the English word.
+1
Level 63
Apr 2, 2025
I tried every wiriting of delicacies I could think of. Would've never thought to use the German word with the letter c. Who came up with that? Like why not use the correct French or German word? Doesn't even look or sound fancier.
+1
Level 52
Mar 31, 2025
100% with 2:26 left :^)
+2
Level 48
Mar 31, 2025
Smartphone, cellphone, phonograph? Seems like a lot of people struggled with "phone."
+1
Level 22
Mar 31, 2025
Idk, maybe I'm being dumb, but I've only ever heard of "fortepiano" and not "pianoforte." Either way, I think it's technically a different instrument.
+1
Level 78
Apr 2, 2025
You're on the right track. Fortepiano and pianoforte are two terms for the same thing. The thing that they refer to is not what we call a piano. It is a different, earlier type of keyboard instrument. This one doesn't belong on the quiz.

- your friendly neighborhood piano tuner

+1
Level 57
Apr 2, 2025
Blog, fax, and piano stumped me. I had no idea those had been shortened
+1
Level 38
Apr 3, 2025
Got everything except umpire (never been around them) and weblog.

Btw, blog is a weblog which is a WEB LOG. Mind blown.

+1
Level 41
Apr 6, 2025
Isn't pianoforte generally called the fortepiano?
+1
Level 46
Apr 14, 2025
today I learned "blog" is short for "weblog" as in "web-log"...
+1
Level 48
May 16, 2025
Piano was a shortening?! No way. At least I got 23/27! Great quiz.