How to Use shorten in a Sentence

shorten

verb

• He had to shorten the speech.
• Why the wrong spot can shorten the shelf life of your eggs.
  — Katie Rosenhouse, Southern Living, 19 Apr. 2025
• Both of their styles will chew the clock and shorten this game.
  — Doug Ziefel, Chicago Tribune, 1 Oct. 2022
• The strength of the glue or even your skin type, as oily skin can break down the glue and shorten the hold.
  — Jazmine Boutte, StyleCaster, 7 Oct. 2024
• There's a lot of slang, and Australians shorten a lot of words.
  — Kevin Lynn, Newsweek, 6 Jan. 2025
• By the end, he’s called Grand Elf, and shortens it to Gandalf.
  — Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline, 3 Oct. 2024
• McCormick shortened the name to just Pumpkin Spice in the 1960s.
  — Terry Baddoo, USA TODAY, 7 Sep. 2024
• The club plans to bring the righthander back as a reliever to shorten the length of his rehab stint.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 25 Aug. 2021
• The move is clearly meant to shorten the show, which is scheduled to run for three hours.
  — oregonlive, 27 Mar. 2022
• Ward shortened his drop and threw a strike in the small sliver of space just before the hash mark.
  — Ted Nguyen, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2025
• The chart above shows every single draft pick in the NBA since 1989, the year that the draft was shortened to just two rounds.
  — Lev Akabas, Sportico.com, 27 June 2024
• Now, the asteroid’s 3.3-year trip around the sun has been shortened by about 24 days.
  — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 6 July 2024
• This gives you more room for games and will shorten game loading times.
  — Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica, 8 July 2022
• The next best thing is to solidify your bullpen and shorten the game.
  — New York Times, 21 Mar. 2022
• This drives the hot end against the block, enlarging it, and shortening the metal in the process.
  — Roy Berendsohn, Popular Mechanics, 9 Aug. 2023
• The kind of shot that can cause a concussion and shorten a career.
  — Jared Wyllys, Forbes, 18 Jan. 2022
• As in our time, plague and war competed to shorten lives.
  — Niall Ferguson Bloomberg Opinion, Star Tribune, 31 July 2021
• The Hawks’ series odds will shorten if that trend continues in the ECF.
  — Jeremy Cluff, The Arizona Republic, 22 June 2021
• The best way to shorten a game is to run the football consistently.
  — Omar Kelly, sun-sentinel.com, 7 Oct. 2021
• Bergeron shortened that phrase to Mai Tai, and the rest is history.
  — Tori Latham, Robb Report, 17 Apr. 2023
• The central pendant can be removed and worn as a brooch, the necklace shortened and worn as a bracelet.
  — Anthony Demarco, Forbes, 2 Dec. 2024
• The pandemic’s power to shorten the lives of Black and brown people in the U.S. has been even more striking.
  — Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2021
• Though Varas shortened the workout to preserve his team’s legs, the 10-on-10 session was full speed, said Heaps.
  — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Apr. 2025
• At that point, rotations had been shortened from three months to 45 days because of the high risk.
  — Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2024
• Torrey Pines was supposed to grind out yards — three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust style — and eat up the clock in an effort to shorten the game.
  — John Maffei, San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Oct. 2021
• But the idea of an over-the-counter way to shorten the misery of a common cold has proved wildly popular.
  — Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times, 10 May 2024
• To fry the wonton wrappers, cut the squares into ½-inch strips, then cut those strips in half crosswise to shorten them.
  — Eric Kim, San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Oct. 2023
• Wildlife experts managed to shorten the rope before the whale headed south, but weren’t able to free it.
  — Russ Bynum, orlandosentinel.com, 6 Dec. 2021
• Ali said Pakistan space bosses will compile a list of five to 10 candidates for the mission over the next month, for China to then shorten to two.
  — Sophia Saifi, CNN Money, 24 Apr. 2025
• The amateur draft was shortened from 40 rounds to five, quashing the possibility that Morgan would be drafted out of OCC that summer.
  — Dennis Lin, New York Times, 1 May 2025