Word.ws English Dictionary

comes up short

comes up short is the third-person singular simple present indicative of come up short.

Meaning of come up short

Verb

come up short (third-person singular simple present comes up short, present participle coming up short, simple past came up short, past participle come up short)

  1. Synonym of fall short.
    • They kept coming up short every time they closed out the register.
    Synonyms:
    fall short

Questions about comes up short

What is comes up short the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Comes up short is the third-person singular simple present indicative of come up short.

Words near comes up short in the dictionary

  1. comes up
  2. comes up against
  3. comes up and bites
  4. comes up from behind
  5. comes up roses
  6. comes up short
  7. comes up snake eyes
  8. comes up to
  9. comes up trumps
  10. comes up with
  11. comes up with snake eyes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: comes up short (page history and authors); come up short (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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