What is short?

More definitions of "short":

• (adj): Low in stature; not tall.
  Example: "His was short and stocky"; "short in stature"; "a short smokestack"

• (adj): Primarily spatial sense; having little length or lacking in length.
  Example: "Short skirts"; "short hair"; "the board was a foot short"; "a short toss"

• (adv): So as to interrupt.
  Example: "She took him up short before he could continue"

• (adv): Tightly.
  Example: "She caught him up short on his lapel"

• (adv): In a curt, abrupt and discourteous manner.
  Example: "He talked short with everyone"
  Synonyms: curtly, shortly

• (adv): At some point or distance before a goal is reached.
  Example: "He fell short of our expectations"

• (adj): Primarily temporal sense; indicating or being or seeming to be limited in duration.
  Example: "A short life"; "a short flight"; "a short holiday"; "a short story"; "only a few short months"

• (noun): The location on a baseball field where the shortstop is stationed.

• (adv): Quickly and without warning.
  Synonyms: abruptly, suddenly, dead

• (adj): Of speech sounds (especially vowels) of relatively short duration (as e.g. the English vowel sounds in 'pat', 'pet', 'pit', 'pot', putt').

• (adj): Lacking foresight or scope.
  Example: "A short view of the problem"
  Synonyms: shortsighted, unforesightful, myopic

• (verb): Cheat someone by not returning him enough money.
  Synonyms: short-change

• (adj): Most direct.
  Synonyms: shortest

• (noun): The fielding position of the player on a baseball team who is stationed between 2nd and 3rd base.
  Synonyms: shortstop

• (adj): Used of syllables that are unaccented or of relatively brief duration.

• (noun): Accidental contact between two points in an electric circuit that have a potential difference.
  Synonyms: short circuit

• (adv): Clean across.
  Example: "The car's axle snapped short"

• (adj): Containing a large amount of shortening; therefore tender and easy to crumble or break into flakes.
  Example: "Shortbread is a short crumbly cookie"; "a short flaky pie crust"

• (adj): Quickly aroused to anger.
  Synonyms: choleric, irascible, hotheaded, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, short-tempered

• (adj): Marked by rude or peremptory shortness.
  Example: "The salesgirl was very short with him"
  Synonyms: brusque, brusk, curt

• (verb): Create a short-circuit in.
  Synonyms: short-circuit

• (adj): Not sufficient to meet a need.
  Example: "Money is short"; "on short rations"; "food is in short supply"; "short on experience"
  Synonyms: inadequate, poor

• (adj): Less than the correct or legal or full amount often deliberately so.
  Example: "Regularly gives short weight"
  Synonyms: light, scant

• (adv): Without possessing something at the time it is contractually sold.
  Example: "He made his fortune by selling short just before the crash"

• (adj): Not holding securities or commodities that one sells in expectation of a fall in prices.
  Example: "A short sale"; "short in cotton"

• (adj): (of memory) deficient in retentiveness or range.
  Example: "A short memory"

• (adv): At a disadvantage.
  Example: "I was caught short"
  Synonyms: unawares

Famous quotes containing the word short:

“Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest.... It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)

“To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics, or of mathematicians, if you will, to say, that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want, or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

“Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow’s arch, which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake of rainbow light, in which, for a short while, I lived like a dolphin. If it had lasted longer it might have tinged my employments and my life.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)