SHORT

brusque, brusk, curt, short

(adjective) marked by rude or peremptory shortness; “try to cultivate a less brusque manner”; “a curt reply”; “the salesgirl was very short with him”

short

(adjective) tending to crumble or break into flakes due to a large amount of shortening; “shortbread is a short crumbly cookie”; “a short flaky pie crust”

short

(adjective) (primarily spatial sense) having little length or lacking in length; “short skirts”; “short hair”; “the board was a foot short”; “a short toss”

short

(adjective) primarily temporal sense; indicating or being or seeming to be limited in duration; “a short life”; “a short flight”; “a short holiday”; “a short story”; “only a few short months”

short

(adjective) of speech sounds or syllables of relatively short duration; “the English vowel sounds in ‘pat’, ‘pet’, ‘pit’, ‘pot’, putt’ are short”

short

(adjective) not holding securities or commodities that one sells in expectation of a fall in prices; “a short sale”; “short in cotton”

short, shortsighted, unforesightful, myopic

(adjective) lacking foresight or scope; “a short view of the problem”; “shortsighted policies”; “shortsighted critics derided the plan”; “myopic thinking”

unretentive, forgetful, short

(adjective) (of memory) deficient in retentiveness or range; “a short memory”

inadequate, poor, short, jejune

(adjective) of insufficient quantity to meet a need; “an inadequate income”; “a poor salary”; “money is short”; “on short rations”; “food is in short supply”; “short on experience”; “the jejune diets of the very poor”

light, scant, short

(adjective) less than the correct or legal or full amount often deliberately so; “a light pound”; “a scant cup of sugar”; “regularly gives short weight”

short, little

(adjective) low in stature; not tall; “he was short and stocky”; “short in stature”; “a short smokestack”; “a little man”

abruptly, suddenly, short, dead

(adverb) quickly and without warning; “he stopped suddenly”

curtly, short, shortly

(adverb) in a curt, abrupt and discourteous manner; “he told me curtly to get on with it”; “he talked short with everyone”; “he said shortly that he didn’t like it”

short, unawares

(adverb) at a disadvantage; “I was caught short”

short

(adverb) so as to interrupt; “She took him up short before he could continue”

short

(adverb) at some point or distance before a goal is reached; “he fell short of our expectations”

short

(adverb) clean across; “the car’s axle snapped short”

short

(adverb) without possessing something at the time it is contractually sold; “he made his fortune by selling short just before the crash”

shortstop, short

(noun) the fielding position of the player on a baseball team who is stationed between second and third base

short

(noun) the location on a baseball field where the shortstop is stationed

short, short-circuit

(verb) create a short circuit in

short, short-change

(verb) cheat someone by not returning him enough money

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Proper noun

Short

A surname.

Anagrams

• Stohr, horst, hotrs, thors, trosh

Etymology

Adjective

short (comparative shorter, superlative shortest)

Having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.

(of a person) Of comparatively small height.

Having little duration.

Antonym: long

(followed by for) Of a word or phrase, constituting an abbreviation (for another) or shortened form (of another).

(cricket, of a fielder or fielding position) that is relatively close to the batsman.

(cricket, of a ball) that bounced relatively far from the batsman.

(golf, of an approach shot or putt) that falls short of the green or the hole.

(of pastries) Brittle, crumbly, especially due to the use of a large quantity of fat. (See shortbread, shortcake, shortcrust, shortening.)

Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant.

Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty.

Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied; scantily furnished; lacking.

Deficient; less; not coming up to a measure or standard.

(colloquial) Undiluted; neat.

(obsolete) Not distant in time; near at hand.

Being in a financial investment position that is structured to be profitable if the price of the underlying security declines in the future.

Usage notes

• (having a small distance between ends or edges): Short is often used in the positive vertical dimension and used as is shallow in the negative vertical dimension; in the horizontal dimension narrow is more commonly used.

Synonyms

• (having a small distance between ends or edges): low, narrow, slim, shallow

• (of a person, of comparatively little height): little, pint-sized, petite, titchy (slang)

• (having little duration): brief, concise

• (constituting an abbreviation (for)): an abbreviation of, a short form of

Antonyms

• (having a small distance between ends or edges): tall, high, wide, broad, deep, long

• (of a person, of comparatively little height): tall

• (having little duration): long

• (cricket, of a fielder or fielding position, relatively close to the batsman): long

• (financial position expecting falling value): long

Adverb

short (not comparable)

Abruptly, curtly, briefly.

Unawares.

Without achieving a goal or requirement.

(cricket, of the manner of bounce of a cricket ball) Relatively far from the batsman and hence bouncing higher than normal; opposite of full.

(finance) With a negative ownership position.

Noun

short (plural shorts)

A short circuit.

A short film.

A short version of a garment in a particular size.

(baseball) A shortstop.

(finance) A short seller.

(finance) A short sale.

A summary account.

(phonetics) A short sound, syllable, or vowel.

(programming) An integer variable having a smaller range than normal integers; usually two bytes long.

(US, slang) An automobile; especially in crack shorts, to break into automobiles.

Verb

short (third-person singular simple present shorts, present participle shorting, simple past and past participle shorted)

(transitive) To cause a short circuit in (something).

(intransitive) Of an electrical circuit, to short circuit.

(transitive) To shortchange.

(transitive) To provide with a smaller than agreed or labeled amount.

(transitive, business) To sell something, especially securities, that one does not own at the moment for delivery at a later date in hopes of profiting from a decline in the price; to sell short.

(obsolete) To shorten.

Preposition

short

Deficient in.

(finance) Having a negative position in.

Synonyms

• (deficient in): lacking, short on

Anagrams

• Stohr, horst, hotrs, thors, trosh

Source: Wiktionary


Short, a. [Compar. Shorter; superl. Shortest.] Etym: [OE. short, schort, AS. scort, sceort; akin to OHG. scurz, Icel. skorta to be short of, to lack, and perhaps to E. shear, v. t. Cf. Shirt.]

1. Not long; having brief length or linear extension; as, a short distance; a short piece of timber; a short flight. The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it. Isa. xxviii. 20.

2. Not extended in time; having very limited duration; not protracted; as, short breath. The life so short, the craft so long to learn. Chaucer. To short absense I could yield. Milton.

3. Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty; as, a short supply of provisions, or of water.

4. Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied; scantily furnished; lacking; not coming up to a resonable, or the ordinary, standard; -- usually with of; as, to be short of money. We shall be short in our provision. Shak.

5. Deficient; defective; imperfect; not coming up, as to a measure or standard; as, an account which is short of the trith.

6. Not distant in time; near at hand. Marinell was sore offended That his departure thence should be so short. Spenser. He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day. Clarendon.

7. Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory. Their own short understandings reach No farther than the present. Rowe.

8. Less important, efficaceous, or powerful; not equal or equivalent; less (than); -- with of. Hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war. Landor.

9. Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; as, he gave a short answer to the question.

10. (Cookery)

Definition: Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp; as, short pastry.

11. (Metal)

Definition: Brittle.

Note: Metals that are brittle when hot are called ; as, cast iron may be hot-short, owing to the presence of sulphur. Those that are brittle when cold are called cold-short; as, cast iron may be cold- short, on account of the presence of phosphorus.

12. (Stock Exchange)

Definition: Engaging or engaged to deliver what is not possessed; as, short contracts; to be short of stock. See The shorts, under Short, n., and To sell short, under Short, adv.

Note: In mercantile transactions, a note or bill is sometimes made payable at short sight, that is, in a little time after being presented to the payer.

13. (Phon.)

Definition: Not prolonged, or relatively less prolonged, in utterance; -- opposed to long, and applied to vowels or to syllables. In English, the long and short of the same letter are not, in most cases, the long and short of the same sound; thus, the i in ill is the short sound, not of i in isle, but of ee in eel, and the e in pet is the short sound of a in pate, etc. See Quantity, and Guide to Pronunciation, §§22, 30.

Note: Short is much used with participles to form numerous self- explaining compounds; as, short-armed, short-billed, short-fingered, short-haired, short-necked, short-sleeved, short-tailed, short- winged, short-wooled, etc. At short notice, in a brief time; promptly.

– Short rib (Anat.), one of the false ribs.

– Short suit (Whist), any suit having only three cards, or less than three. R. A. Proctor.

– To come short, To cut short, To fall short, etc. See under Come, Cut, etc.

Short, n.

1. A summary account. The short and the long is, our play is preferred. Shak.

2. pl.

Definition: The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran. The first remove above bran is shorts. Halliwell.

3. pl.

Definition: Short, inferior hemp.

4. pl.

Definition: Breeches; shortclothes. [Slang] Dickens.

5. (Phonetics)

Definition: A short sound, syllable, or vowel. If we compare the nearest conventional shorts and longs in English, as in "bit" and "beat," "not" and "naught," we find that the short vowels are generally wide, the long narrow, besides being generally diphthongic as well. Hence, originally short vowels can be lengthened and yet kept quite distinct from the original longs. H. Sweet. In short, in few words; in brief; briefly.

– The long and the short, the whole; a brief summing up.

– The shorts (Stock Exchange), those who are unsupplied with stocks which they contracted to deliver.

Short, adv.

Definition: In a short manner; briefly; limitedly; abruptly; quickly; as, to stop short in one's course; to turn short. He was taken up very short, and adjudged corrigible for such presumptuous language. Howell. To sell short (Stock Exchange), to sell, for future delivery, what the party selling does not own, but hopes to buy at a lower rate.

Short, v. t. Etym: [AS. sceortian.]

Definition: To shorten. [Obs.]

Short, v. i.

Definition: To fail; to decrease. [Obs.]

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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