SHORTER
Adjective
shorter
comparative form of short.
Noun
shorter (plural shorters)
(colloquial) A short, a short seller: one who engages in short selling.
Anagrams
• Rothers, rhetors, rothers
Proper noun
Shorter (plural Shorters)
A surname.
Statistics
• According to the 2010 United States Census, Shorter is the 4092nd most common surname in the United States, belonging to 8675 individuals. Shorter is most common among Black/African American (58.16%) and White (35.94%) individuals.
Anagrams
• Rothers, rhetors, rothers
Source: Wiktionary
SHORT
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