Gregg Shorthand Reverse Dictionary Lookup

🔍 How to Search for Gregg ShorthandOutlines Using GST (Gregg Shorthand Text) notation

Gregg Shorthand Text (GST) is a plain-text notation for representing Gregg shorthand outlines.

✏️ How It Works:

Use the characters that represent each stroke, separated by - (hyphen).
If parts of the outline are disjointed, separate them with a / (slash).

👉 Example: Type s/v-i-s-r, then click "Search GST" — you'll get the outline for supervisor.

🔤Special Stroke Conventions:

Most stroke characters are intuitive (like -b for the "b" stroke), but the following may be less obvious:

-k = hard c or k sounds
-s = s both s1 (right stroke aka comma s) and s2 (left s stroke)
-tm = tm or dm blend
-tn = tn or dn blend
-df = df or tf or dv or tv blend
-nt = nt or nd blend
-mt = mt or md blend
-jnt = jnt or pnt or pnd blend

Notation description

Here is a complete description of the notation used to represent the Gregg outlines.

b-ld/s (s2)

This indicates a the shorthand outline for buildings 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
z  the "left s" stroke
f  the "f" stroke
v  the "v" 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
j  the "j" 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.
-/-: Indicates the letters to the left and right of the slash intersect each other.
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.
ea: A large circle with a dot or dash inside, such as in piano , or create .
ie: A small circle within a large circle, such as in highly, and science.
ch: Medium-length vertical line.
df: A blend that can represent def,dev, dif, div, or tif,tive.

Note: When a blend represents more than one letter combination, in Gregg Notation use the form with the shortest strokes. For example, the blend for tm and dm is written as tm because the t stroke is shorter than d.

We use df to represent the tf, tv, df, and dv blends, even though tf is shorter. This ensures consistency across all versions of Gregg as DJS, S90, Cent do not blend tf or tv.

jnt A blend that can represent gent/d or pent/d as in gentlemen.
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 as in system.
td: The upward stroke representing ted, det, or ded.
th: Represents the stroke for the over or under th as in the or there.
tm: The tem or dem blend.
tn: The ten or den blend.
w: Letter w represented by underline such as in beware.
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 such as in tears.
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)
...