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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shortcut.

A path between two points that is faster than the commonly used paths.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʃɔːtkʌt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʃɔːtkʌt/British, Southern, Standard/ˈʃɔːtkʊt/Northern-England/ˈʃɔːtˌkət/Wales

  1. A path between two points that is faster than the commonly used paths.

  2. A method to accomplish something that omits one or more steps.

  3. A file that points to the location of another file and serves as a quick way to access it.

    There are shortcuts to some of my favourite applications on my desktop.

  4. Ellipsis of keyboard shortcut.

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-der.? Proto-Germanic *skertaną Proto-Germanic *skurtaz Proto-West Germanic *skurt Old English sċort Middle English schort English short English cut English shortcut From short + cut.

verb/ˈʃɔːtkʌt/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʃɔːtkʌt/British, Southern, Standard/ˈʃɔːtkʊt/Northern-England/ˈʃɔːtˌkət/Wales

  1. To take or use a shortcut

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-der.? Proto-Germanic *skertaną Proto-Germanic *skurtaz Proto-West Germanic *skurt Old English sċort Middle English schort English short English cut English shortcut From short + cut.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.