Word.ws English Dictionary

coming up short

coming up short is the present participle and gerund 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 coming up short

What is coming up short the present participle and gerund of?
Coming up short is the present participle and gerund of come up short.

Words near coming up short in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coming 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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