Underdoubling

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The practice of writing a word with fewer double letters than standard spelling conventions require
2. When a word is spelled with less than the usual number of doubled letters typical to correct orthography
3. The act of omitting some expected repeated letters in a word's spelling compared to its normal form

Etymology: Underdoubling is a rare technical coinage, and its history is simply that of its parts: "under-" from Old English "under," meaning beneath or below, plus "doubling," the present participle of "double." The noun "doubling" dates to Middle English, and "double" itself came into English from Old French "doble," ultimately from Latin "duplus," meaning twofold. The "under-" prefix here carries its usual sense of insufficiency or falling short, so "underdoubling" describes writing a letter once where a double would be expected, as in the spelling "ofice" for "office." The word is best understood as a modern formation built to name a specific feature of spelling, and it appears mainly in discussions of orthography and of how spelling is standardized. Because it was formed on demand rather than inherited, it has no older meaning to trace beyond these components.