Word.ws English Dictionary

pulling up short

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

What is pulling up short the present participle and gerund of?
Pulling up short is the present participle and gerund of pull up short.

Words near pulling up short in the dictionary

  1. pulling together
  2. pulling tongues
  3. pulling up
  4. pulling up on
  5. pulling up one's socks
  6. pulling up short
  7. pulling up stakes
  8. pulling up the ladder
  9. Pullinger
  10. Pullingers
  11. pullings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulling 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: “pulling up short.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pulling_up_short. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.