a. [ Compar. Shorter superl. Shortest. ] [ OE. short, schort, AS. scort, sceort; akin to OHG. scurz, Icel. skorta to be short of, to lack, and perhaps to E. shear, v. t. Cf. Shirt. ] 1. Not long; having brief length or linear extension; as, a short distance; a short piece of timber; a short flight. [ 1913 Webster ]

The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it. Isa. xxviii. 20. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Not extended in time; having very limited duration; not protracted; as, short breath. [ 1913 Webster ]

The life so short, the craft so long to learn. Chaucer. [ 1913 Webster ]

To short absense I could yield. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty; as, a short supply of provisions, or of water. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

We shall be short in our provision. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. Deficient; defective; imperfect; not coming up, as to a measure or standard; as, an account which is short of the trith. [ 1913 Webster ]

6. Not distant in time; near at hand. [ 1913 Webster ]

Marinell was sore offended
That his departure thence should be so short. Spenser. [ 1913 Webster ]

He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day. Clarendon. [ 1913 Webster ]

7. Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory. [ 1913 Webster ]

Their own short understandings reach
No farther than the present. Rowe. [ 1913 Webster ]

8. Less important, efficaceous, or powerful; not equal or equivalent; less (than); -- with of. [ 1913 Webster ]

Hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war. Landor. [ 1913 Webster ]

9. Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; as, he gave a short answer to the question. [ 1913 Webster ]

10. (Cookery) Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp; as, short pastry. [ 1913 Webster ]

11. (Metal) Brittle. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ Metals that are brittle when hot are called &unr_;ot-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. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

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, and Guide to Pronunciation, §§22, 30. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ 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. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. R. A. Proctor. --
To come short,
To cut short,
To fall short, etc. See under Come, Cut, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

adv. In a short manner; briefly; limitedly; abruptly; quickly; as, to stop short in one's course; to turn short. [ 1913 Webster ]

He was taken up very short, and adjudged corrigible for such presumptuous language. Howell. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To fail; to decrease. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. A summary account. [ 1913 Webster ]

The short and the long is, our play is preferred. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. pl. The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran. [ 1913 Webster ]

The first remove above bran is shorts. Halliwell. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. pl. Short, inferior hemp. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. pl. Breeches; shortclothes. [ Slang ] Dickens. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. (Phonetics) A short sound, syllable, or vowel. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. H. Sweet. [ 1913 Webster ]

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. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ AS. sceortian. ] To shorten. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Amount or extent of deficiency, as determined by some requirement or standard; as, a shortage in money accounts. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Having short-breath, or quick respiration. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Having short life. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. An unsweetened breakfast cake shortened with butter or lard, rolled thin, and baked. [ 1913 Webster ]

(Elec.) A circuit formed or closed by a conductor of relatively low resistance because shorter or of relatively great conductivity. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Short-circuited; p. pr. & vb. n. Short-circuiting. ] (Elec.) To join, as the electrodes of a battery or dynamo or any two points of a circuit, by a conductor of low resistance. [ 1913 Webster ]