Gregg Shorthand Reverse Dictionary Lookup List

This document is a short reverse dictionary for Gregg Shorthand outlines. Its purpose is to enable the user to look up shorthand outlines and find words corresponding to those outlines. The dictionary primarily covers the Anniversary edition of Gregg Shorthand. Some outlines from other versions are included as well, especially the brief forms. Where an outline comes from a different version, this has been noted in parentheses. Even though the focus is on Anniversary, users of other versions should find this document useful, since newer versions are less abbreviated than Anniversary.

Notation Notes

Here is a description of the notation used to represent the Gregg outlines. The entries in this dictionary are notated as in the following example:

b-ld/s (s2)

This indicates a shorthand outline composed of the letter b, an ld blend, and disjoined s. The "(s2)" indicates that the s is a left s.

Unigraphs

a  the "a" stroke, the large vowel circle
e  the "e" stroke, the tiny vowel circle
i  the "long i" stroke, the indented circle
o  the "o" hook
u  the "oo" hook
s  the "comma s" stroke
f  the "f" stroke
v  the "v" stroke
z  the "left s" stroke
p  the "p" stroke
b  the "b" stroke
m  the "m" stroke
n  the "n" stroke
k  the "k" stroke
g  the "gay" stroke
r  the "r" stroke
l  the "l" stroke
t  the "t" stroke
d  the "d" stroke
...
    

Digraphs

• /: Indicates the letters to the left and right of the slash are disjoined.
• ch: Medium-length vertical line.
• df: A blend that can represent def/v, dif/v, or -tive.
• ea: A large circle with a dot or dash inside, such as in brilliant or create.
• h: Stands for a dot anywhere in the word: the h as in hot, the first a as in awake, and the -ing as in thing.
• ia: A small circle within a large circle, such as in science.
• jnt: A blend that can represent gent/d or pent/d.
• ld: The ld blend.
• mn: The horizontal stroke representing mem or men.
• mt: The mt or md blend.
• ng: Short downward line representing ng.
• nk: Medium-length downward line representing nk.
• nt: The nt or nd blend.
• sh: Short vertical line.
• ss: Represents the stroke used for ses.
• td: The upward stroke representing ted, det, or ded.
• th: Represents the stroke for the over or under th.
• tm: The tem or dem blend.
• tn: The ten or den blend.
• w: Letter w represented by underline.
• ya: A large oval anywhere in an outline. Used to represent ya- and -ars.
• ye: A small oval anywhere in an outline. Used to represent ye-, -ally, -ily, and -ers.
• yi: A large broken oval that represents yi- as in "yikes" or -irs as in "tires."

Additional Notes

Note that diphthongs, except for i, are indicated using two letters. In particular:

• ou is represented as [a-u]
• oi by [o-e]
• long u by [e-u]

Occasionally there are clarifications in parentheses after the outlines. These are used to give additional details about the outlines, if needed. In particular, letters that can be written in more than one way are notated with numbers afterwards. In these cases:

• 1: Indicates that the letter is written clockwise.
• 2: Indicates that it is written counterclockwise.

Examples

/b            -bility
/d            department, -hood, -ward
/e            -ingly
/e (over last character)  -egraph
/f            -fication
/g            -gram, -grim
/k            -cle
/l            -lity
/m            -mental, -mentality (1916)
...