1. The act or process of reducing; a shortening of time or labor; a curtailment of privileges: The city council voted for an abridgment of the mayor's power.
2. A compendium of a larger work, with the details and less important things omitted, but retaining the sense and substance; an epitome, or abstract: Did you see the new abridgment of Gibbon's Roman History?

The professor really liked the abridgment of the latest novel by his favorite writer that was published in the newspaper.

3. Etymology: Abridgment, or abridgement was borrowed from Old French abregement, from abregier, "to shorten, to diminish"; from Latin abbreviare, "to make short".