Word.ws English Dictionary

pulls up short

pulls up short is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 pulls up short

What is pulls up short the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pulls up short is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pull up short.

Words near pulls up short in the dictionary

  1. pulls tongues
  2. pulls up
  3. pulls up a pew
  4. pulls up on
  5. pulls up one's socks
  6. pulls up short
  7. pulls up stakes
  8. pulls up the ladder
  9. pullstring
  10. pullstrings
  11. pullthrough

Source and license

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