Short

a. [compar. SHORTER; superl. SHORTEST.] [A.-S. scort, sceort, probably from the root of shear; O. H. Ger. scurz, kurz, kurt, Wall. skurta, Alban. iskurtar, Icel. kortr; Sw., Dan., D., & L. Ger. kort, Lat. curtus.]

1Sense 1. Not long; having brief length or linear extension; as, a short distance; a short ferry; a short flight; a short piece of timber.

The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it. Isa. xxviii. 20.

2Sense 2. Not extended in time; having very limited duration; not protracted; as, short breath.

To short absence I could yield. Milton.

3Sense 3. Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty; as, a short supply of provisions, water, &c.

4Sense 4. Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied; scantily furnished; lacking; not coming up to a reasonable, or the ordinary, standard;—usually with of; as, to be short of provisions.

We shall be short in our provision. Shak.

5Sense 5. Deficient; defective; imperfect; not coming up, as to a measure or standard; as, an account which is short of the truth.

6Sense 6. Not distant in time; near at hand; not far in the future.

Marinell was sore offended That his departure should be so short. Spenser.

He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day. Clarendon.

7Sense 7. Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory.

Their own short understandings reach No further than the present. Rowe.

8Sense 8. Less important, efficacious, or powerful; not equal or equivalent; less;—with of.

Hardly any thing short of an invasion could rouse them to war. Landor.

9Sense 9. Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; severe; as, they asked him a question, to which he gave a short answer.

10Sense 10. (Cookery.) Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp.

11Sense 11. Brittle; friable.

☞ Iron is made cold-short, that is, brittle when cold, by the presence of phosphorus; and hot-short, or red-short, by the presence of sulphur.

12Sense 12. (Stock Exchange.) Engaging to deliver what is not possessed; as, short contracts.

☞ In mercantile transactions, a note or bill is made payable at short sight, that is, in a little time after being presented to the payer.

13Sense 13. (Pron.) Pronounced with a less prolonged utterance, and with a somewhat thinner and more slender sound;—said of vowels, in English, as distinguished from the same when having the “long” sound; as, a in bāt, e in mĕt, i in pĭn, o in nŏt, u in hŭt, and the like; less prolonged, simply, and distinguished from the same sound as of long quantity;—said of the vowels in many languages, and sometimes of vowel sounds in English.

☞ It must not be supposed that the so-called “short” vowels are necessarily uttered in less time than the “long” vowels. Any quality of vowel sound whatever may be continued to any length that the breath will allow, or its duration may be the very briefest which the organs of speech are capable of measuring, and yet the quality of the sound remain the same. Still, as a matter of fact, the “short” vowels are usually, if not always, less protracted than the “long.” It is to be particularly noted that the “short” vowels are wholly unlike the “long” both in quality and mode of formation. There is, for example, no phonetic relationship between the “long” sound of a in fate and the “short” sound of the same letter in fat; between the o in note and that in not, &c. In a word, the difference between the two classes is one of quality as well as of quantity.

☞ Short is used in the formation of numerous self-explaining compounds; as, short-armed, short-billed, short-bodied, short-eared, short-fingered, short-footed, short-haired, short-horned, short-legged, short-necked, short-nosed, short-skirted, short-sleeved, short-tailed, short-toed, short-tongued, short-winged, short-wooled, and the like.

At short notice, in a brief time; promptly.—Short rib (Anat.), a rib shorter than the others, below the sternum; one of the false or floating ribs.—To cut short, to make brief; to abridge.—To fall or come short, to fail of doing or providing what is due, expected, or necessary; to fail.

n. 1. A summary account; as, the short of the matter.

The short and the long is our play is preferred. Shak.

2Sense 2. (pl.) The part of ground grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran, “The first remove above bran is shorts.” Halliwell.

The shorts (Stock Exchange), those who are unsupplied with stocks which they have contracted to deliver.

In short, in few words; briefly; to sum up or close in a few words.—The long and short, the whole.

In a short manner, as briefly, limitedly, abruptly, suddenly, and the like; as, to stop short; to turn short.

The lance broke short. Dryden.

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.

v. t. [A-S. scortian, sceortian, scyrtan, ge-scyrtan, to shorten.] To shorten; to make shorter. [Obs.]

v. i. To fail; to decrease. [Obs.]