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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



... He stopped short and his expression set her bosom to heaving. But her gaze was steady upon his. "Why did you tell me!" he cried. "Oh, it isn't so—it can't be. You ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... amusement. So far from preventing him from noticing the other women in the harem, I would recommend them, and often have them in my apartments when he would visit me, and wish to be alone. I generally contrived to manage a little quarrel about once a month, as it renewed his passion. In short, the sultan became, as I intended, so infatuated, that he was my slave, and at the same time I felt an ardent attachment to him. My power was well known. The presents which I received from those who required my good offices were innumerable, and I never retained them, but sent ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... affection for me, as did the duc d'Aiguillon, to whom I daily attached myself. He carefully kept from me all that could give me pain, and took a thousand precautions that no unpleasant reports should reach me. If we passed a short time without meeting he wrote to me, and I confess I was delighted with a correspondence which formed my own style. Mademoiselle Chon, my sister-in-law, and I also wrote to each other, and that from one room to another. I remember ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... as a filter for actual experiences. A man must have a rich and varied experience of men and women before he can use books to advantage. Life is varied, men and women many, while the individual life is short; wise men read books, therefore, to enrich their experience, not merely as the pedant does, to garner facts. "J'etudie les livres en attendant que J'etudie les hommes," writes Voltaire. "Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... on the trail. He made a short cut over the ridges and by the time the mist had lifted from the valley he was within stalking distance of the glade. He approached this in the familiar, slow, cautious manner, and halted behind the big rock from which he and Wetzel had leaped. The wood ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey


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