Word.ws English Dictionary

pulled up short

pulled up short is the simple past and past participle of pull up short.

Meaning of pull up short

Verb

pull up short (third-person singular simple present pulls up short, present participle pulling up short, simple past and past participle pulled up short)

  1. (transitive) Synonym of bring up short.
    Synonyms:
    bring up short
  2. (intransitive) To be overwhelmed or dumbfounded by events.
    • Deborah Kerdeman asks us to prepare for the occasions on which we will be “pulled up short.”2015, Mary Jo Hinsdale, Mutuality, Mystery, and Mentorship in Higher Education, page 99

Questions about pulled up short

What is pulled up short the simple past and past participle of?
Pulled up short is the simple past and past participle of pull up short.

Words near pulled up short in the dictionary

  1. pulled together
  2. pulled tongues
  3. pulled up
  4. pulled up on
  5. pulled up one's socks
  6. pulled up short
  7. pulled up stakes
  8. pulled up the ladder
  9. pulled-to-publish
  10. pulledst
  11. pullen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulled up short (page history and authors); pull 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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Cite this entry: “pulled up short.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pulled_up_short. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.