Sitcom is defined as a shortening by
- The Free Dictionary
n. Informal. situation comedy. [1960–65; by shortening]
- Wikipedia
A situation comedy, often shortened to the portmanteau sitcom
- Dictionary.com
noun, Informal. 1. situation comedy. 1960-65; by shortening
Or as an abbreviation by
- Oxford Dictionaries
Origin 1960s: abbreviation.- Reverso Dictionary
A sitcom is an amusing television drama series about a set of characters. SitcomSitcom is an abbreviation for `situation comedy'
Or simply short for by
- Vocabulary.com
Sitcom is short for “situation comedy.”
Or a clipped form as described by Prof. Larry Trask
Contractions must be carefully distinguished from clipped forms. A clipped form is a full word which happens to be derived by chopping a piece off a longer word, usually one with the same meaning. Clipped forms are very common in English; here are a few, with their related longer forms:
gym_____gymnasium
ad ______advertisement
pro _____professional
deli _____delicatessen
hippo ____hippopotamus (etc.)
Or as a clipping by Wikipedia
In linguistics, clipping is the word formation process which consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (Marchand: 1969). Clipping is also known as "truncation" or "shortening." Clipping mainly consists of the following types:
Back clipping
Fore-clipping
Middle clipping
Complex clipping[...]
Complex Clipping
Clipped forms are also used in compounds. One part of the original compound most often remains intact. Examples are: cablegram (cable telegram), op art (optical art), org-man (organization man), linocut (linoleum cut). Sometimes both halves of a compound are clipped as in navicert (navigation certificate). In these cases it is difficult to know whether the resultant formation should be treated as a clipping or as a blend, for the border between the two types is not always clear. According to Bauer (1983), the easiest way to draw the distinction is to say that those forms which retain compound stress are clipped compounds, whereas those that take simple word stress are not. By this criterion bodbiz, Chicom, Comsymp, Intelsat, midcult, pro-am, photo op, sci-fi, and sitcom are all compounds made of clippings.