shortening

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shortening

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shortening (countable and uncountable, plural shortenings)

1. (US, cooking) Fat that is solid at room temperature, especially hydrogenated vegetable oil (known as vegetable shortening), used to make shortcrust pastry and in deep fat frying.
   • 1979, The Beach Boys, “Shortnin' Bread”, in Adult Child:

     Put on the skillet, slip on the lid / Mammy's going to make us some shortening bread / And that ain't all our mammy's going to do / She's going to cook us some coffee, too

2. verbal noun of shorten: the process by which something is made shorter; a reduction in length.

   Antonyms: extension, lengthening

In older texts, the term shortening referred to any fat solid at room temperature, including butter, margarine and lard, but in more recent usage it is usually understood to refer to vegetable shortening.

shortening

1. present participle and gerund of shorten

• Heringtons

Unadapted borrowing from English shortening.

shortening n (uncountable)

1. shortening