'foreseeably-shortened' originates from the combination of 'foreseeably' and 'shortened'. 'Foreseeably' comes from 'foresee', which originates from Old English 'foreseon', meaning 'to see beforehand'. 'Shortened' comes from 'shorten', which originates from Old English 'sceortian', meaning 'to make short'.

'foreseeably-shortened' changed from the combination of 'foresee' and 'shorten' in Old English to its modern form by adding the suffixes '-ably' and '-ed'.

Initially, 'foresee' meant 'to see beforehand' and 'shorten' meant 'to make short'. The combined term 'foreseeably-shortened' evolved to mean 'likely to be reduced in a predictable manner'.