WordWeb Online

1. Primarily temporal sense; indicating, 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"
    
2. (primarily spatial sense) having little length or lacking in length
   "short skirts"; "short hair"; "the board was a foot short"; "a short toss"
    
3. Low in stature; not tall; describing something or someone with a stature less than normal
   "he was short and stocky"; "short in stature"; "a short smokestack";
   - little
    
4. (of memory) deficient in retentiveness or range
   "a short memory";
   - unretentive, forgetful
    
5. (finance) not holding securities or commodities that one sells in expectation of a fall in prices
   "a short sale"; "short in cotton"
    
6. (phonetics) of speech sounds or syllables of relatively short duration
   "the English vowel sounds in 'pat', 'pet', 'pit', 'pot', putt' are short"
    
7. Of insufficient quantity to meet a need
   "money is short"; "on short rations"; "food is in short supply"; "short on experience";
   - inadequate, poor, jejune
    
8. Less than the correct, legal or full amount, often deliberately
   "regularly gives short weight";
   - light, scant
    
9. Lacking foresight or scope
   "a short view of the problem"; "a short-sighted view of the problem";
   - shortsighted, unforesightful, myopic, short-sighted
    
10. Tending to crumble or break into flakes due to a large amount of shortening
    "a short flaky pie crust"; "shortbread is a short crumbly cookie"
     
11. Marked by rude or peremptory shortness
    "the salesgirl was very short with him";
    - brusque, brusk [non-standard], curt, snippy [informal]

1. The location on a baseball field where the shortstop is stationed
    
2. Accidental contact between two points in an electric circuit that have a potential difference
   - short circuit
    
3. The fielding position of the player on a baseball team who is stationed between second and third base
   - shortstop
    
4. Sale of securities or commodity futures not owned by the seller (who hopes to buy them back later at a lower price)
   - short sale, short selling

1. Cheat someone by not returning him enough money
   - short-change
    
2. Create a short circuit in
   - short-circuit
    
3. (finance) sell borrowed shares in the hope that the price will fall before they have to be paid for
   "hedge funds are shorting British companies in expectation of a stock market crash"

1. Clean across
   "the car's axle snapped short"
    
2. (finance) without possessing something at the time it is contractually sold
   "he made his fortune by selling short just before the crash"
    
3. At some point or distance before a goal is reached
   "he fell short of our expectations"
    
4. So as to interrupt
   "She took him up short before he could continue"
    
5. At a disadvantage
   "I was caught short";
   - unawares
    
6. In a curt, abrupt and discourteous manner
   "he talked short with everyone";
   - curtly, shortly
    
7. Quickly and without warning
   "he stopped short";
   - suddenly, all of a sudden, on the spur of the moment, of a sudden, abruptly, dead

Derived forms: shorter, shorted, shortest, shorting, shorts

See also: abbreviated, breakable, brief, chunky, clipped, close, compact, curtal [archaic], deficient, discourteous, dumpy, duration, fleeting, forgetful, fugitive, half-length, heavyset, height, ignorant, improvident, insufficient, length, low, low-set, mindless, momentaneous, momentary, pint-size, pint-sized, runty, sawed-off [N. Amer], sawn-off [Brit], short and sweet, short-dated [Brit], shortened, shortish, short-range, short-run, short-snouted, short-stalked, short-term, snub, squab, squabby, squat, squatty, stature, stocky, stubby, stumpy, telescoped, thick, thickset, truncate, truncated, unmindful

Type of: bunco [N. Amer, informal], bunko [N. Amer, informal], con [informal], contact, create, defraud, diddle [informal], goldbrick [N. Amer, informal], grift [N. Amer, informal], hornswoggle [N. Amer, informal], make, mulct, nobble [Brit, informal], parcel, parcel of land, piece of ground, piece of land, position, ream [N. Amer, informal], rook, scam [informal], short-change, swindle, tangency, tract, trading, victimise [Brit], victimize

Antonym: long

Part of: baseball diamond, baseball team, circuit, diamond, electric circuit, electrical circuit, infield

Encyclopedia: Short, Oklahoma