short – English adjective declension

English adjective forms of short

Adjective: short

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparativeshorter
Superlativeshortest

Perifrastic

Sample Sentences

  • Nhung Ngo had the shortest legs at Site-43. She was the shortest member of staff, two inches beneath the positively elfin Delfina Ibanez, and yet Lillian found her inexplicably difficult to shake. Power-walking down the halls didn't do the trick, as it always did when Wettle-dodging, since the diminutive headshrink kept disappearing into commissaries or service corridors or even other people's offices and emerging, smiling, in front of her. [2022 September 22, HarryBlank, “Mind Over Matter”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 23 May 2024:]
  • Our meeting was a short six minutes today. Every day for the past month it’s been at least twenty minutes long.
  • The results of this generalized speedup of the corporate metabolism are multiple: shorter product life cycles, more leasing and renting, more frequent buying and selling, more ephemeral consumption patterns, […] [1980, Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave, page 230:]
  • Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals. [2012 March-April, Anna Lena Phillips, “Sneaky Silk Moths”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 19 Feb 2013, page 172:]
  • Having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is associated with a shorter life expectancy and a greater risk of mental health issues, according to a new study of more than 30,000 people with the disorder in the United Kingdom. [2025 January 23, Kristen Rogers, “People with ADHD have shorter life expectancy and higher risk of mental health issues, study finds”, in CNN:]
  • "Phone" is short for "telephone" and "asap" short for "as soon as possible".
  • shortbread
  • hot short
  • I chose to interpret the references to butter and sugar as indicating that a short pastry was required. (Later editions suggest a biscuit-like texture.) [2013, Heston Blumenthal, Historic Heston, →ISBN, page 122:]
  • He gave a short answer to the question.
  • “We are short to-night!” cries the woman, with a propitiatory laugh. “Short and snappish we are! […]” [1870 April–September, Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1870, →OCLC:]
  • The reason I was a tad short with Start, Leeper and Burnsome was my fear they, with their education, experience and degrees, would see what I had denied for all these years[…]. [2014, Charles E. Schwarz, Murder at the Table of Fools:]
  • a short supply of provisions
  • to be short of money
  • I'd lend you the cash but I'm a little short at present.
  • The cashier came up short ten dollars on his morning shift.
  • an account which is short of the truth
  • […]the people are worn down with taxes, and hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war. [1829, Walter Savage Landor, “The Emperor Alexander and Capo D'Istria”, in Imaginary Conversations, volume IV:]
  • “There ain’t no drain of nothing short handy, is there?” said the Chicken, generally. “This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man as lives on his condition.”
  • Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum […] [1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:]
  • Delance raised his beer and watched Hoadly throw down another swig of hard stuff. "Take it short if you want to make it over the mountain tonight." [2003, Linda Chaikin, Desert Rose:]
  • Marinell was sore offended / That his departure thence should be so short. [1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 18:]
  • He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day. [1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, (please specify |book=I to XVI), in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the [Sheldonian] Theater:]
  • But, alas! he who escapes from death is not pardoned; he is only reprieved, and reprieved to a short day. [1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume I, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:]
  • short position
  • I'm short in General Motors because I think their sales are plunging.
  • He pulled a cheque-book from his pocket, and drew for two hundred thousand pounds. “I'll take it short,” he said […] [1909, James Blyth, The member for Easterby, page 296:]

Adjectives inflected like short

sallow, smooth, slight, sleigh, sordid, somber, shweet, shrill, shrewd, yellow, yaller, hard knock, DRY, Greek, cut short, unquiet, unclean, indiscreet, chipper, straicht, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-der.?
3. Proto-Germanic *skertaną
4. Proto-Germanic *skurtaz
5. Proto-West Germanic *skurt
6. Old English sċort
7. Middle English schort
8. English short
9. From Middle English schort, short, from Old English sċeort, sċort (“short”), from Proto-West Germanic *skurt, from Proto-Germanic *skurtaz (“short”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-. Doublet of shirt, skirt, and curt.
10. Cognates
11. Cognate with Scots short, schort (“short”), French court, Dutch kort, German kurz, Old High German scurz (“short”) (whence Middle High German schurz), Old Norse skorta (“to lack”) (whence Danish skorte), Albanian shkurt (“short, brief”), Latin curtus (“shortened, incomplete”) and Proto-Slavic *kortъkъ. See more at shirt. See: French Adjectives 'court', Dutch Adjectives 'kort', German Adjectives 'kurz', Latin Adjectives 'curtus'.

Verbs referencing "short"

Latin Adjectives curtus.