7. Limited in intellectual power or grasp; not comprehensive; narrow; not tenacious, as memory.
Their own short understandings reach
No farther than the present.
Rowe. 8. Less important, efficaceous, or powerful; not equal or equivalent; less (than); — with of.
Hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war.
Landor. 9. Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant; as, he gave a short answer to the question.
10. (Cookery) Breaking or crumbling readily in the mouth; crisp; as, short pastry.
11. (Metal) Brittle.
Metals that are brittle when hot are called 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Short
(Short), n.
1. A summary account.
The short and the long is, our play is preferred.
Shak. 2. pl. The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran.
The first remove above bran is shorts.
Halliwell. 3. pl. Short, inferior hemp.
4. pl. Breeches; shortclothes. [Slang] Dickens.
5. (Phonetics) A short sound, syllable, or vowel.
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
