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Short   /ʃɔrt/   Listen
adjective
Short  adj.  (compar. shorter; superl. shortest)  
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."
2.
Not extended in time; having very limited duration; not protracted; as, short breath. "The life so short, the craft so long to learn." "To short absense I could yield."
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."
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." "He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day."
7.
Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory. "Their own short understandings reach No farther than the present."
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."
9.
Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; as, he gave a short answer to the question.
10.
(Cookery) Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp; as, short pastry.
11.
(Metal) Brittle. Note: Metals that are brittle when hot are called hot-short; 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) 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.) 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. 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.
To come short, To cut short, To fall short, etc. See under Come, Cut, etc.


adverb
Short  adv.  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."
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.


noun
Short  n.  
1.
A summary account. "The short and the long is, our play is preferred."
2.
pl. The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran. "The first remove above bran is shorts."
3.
pl. Short, inferior hemp.
4.
pl. Breeches; shortclothes. (Slang)
5.
(Phonetics) 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."
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.


verb
Short  v. t.  To shorten. (Obs.)


Short  v. i.  To fail; to decrease. (Obs.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Short" Quotes from Famous Books



... to feed the dried wavy strands of kelp between the hungry brown furrow lips. They packed the long groove near the stone fence; they rounded past the big boulder that could not be budged; last of all, they filled the short far row in the strangely shaped little field. At noon, Paddy's mother appeared at the half door of the cabin and called in the general direction of the field—it was difficult to see them, for their frieze suits had been dyed in bog water and she could not at once distinguish them ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... is not yet in the market, and probably will not be for some time to come. Only three or four samples have been manufactured, and after being subjected to every possible test short of actual service in the hands of troops, it has proved so entirely satisfactory that preparations are now making for its extensive production. Thus far it is known as the Ashcroft rifle, from the name of the proprietor, Mr. E.H. Ashcroft of Boston, the persevering energy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... strictly substitutional, or literally vicarious. The old theologies, perplexed and darkened with metaphysics and scholastic logic—the fruit of academic pride and the love of ecclesiastical dominion—labored to prove and to teach that Christ, in his short agony upon the cross, really suffered the pains of sin and bore the actual sum of all the anguish from remorse and guilt due to myriads of sinners, through the ages of eternity.... Our sense of justice and goodness so far as God himself is concerned, is vastly more shocked by ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... orchestra, so he said, only with his eyes: 'My left eye is the first violin, my right eye the second, and if the eye is to have power, one must not wear glasses (as so many bad conductors do), even if one is short-sighted. I,' he admitted confidentially, 'cannot see twelve inches in front of me, but all the same I can make them play as I want, merely by fixing them with my eye.' In some respects the arbitrary way in which he used to arrange his orchestra was really very irrational. From his old days in ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to your indifferent neighbor, what blind alleys, and deep caverns, and inaccessible mountains! To him who "touches the electric chain wherewith you're darkly bound," your soul sends back an answering thrill. Our little window is opened, and there is short parley. Your ships speak each other now and then in welcome, though imperfect communication; but immediately you strike out again into the great, shoreless sea, over which you must sail forever alone. You may shrink from the far-reaching solitudes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various


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