Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use shortly in a sentence

40 example sentences · adverb

Shortly means in a short or brief time or manner; quickly. Example: “The past perfect progressive is used for actions and situations which had continued up to a past moment or shortly before it.”

Examples of shortly by meaning

adverbIn or after a short time; soon.

  • The past perfect progressive is used for actions and situations which had continued up to a past moment or shortly before it.
  • Kaplan-Miller said she first joined the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, an interfaith organization that was founded by a Muslim and a Jewish woman in suburban New Jersey, shortly after the 2016 election.2023 November 22, Brammhi Balarajan, “US interfaith communities draw on decades-long bonds to navigate Israel-Hamas War”, in CNN

adverbIn few words.

  • Ideas are generally expressed more shortly in verse than in prose

adverbIn an irritable ("short") manner.

  • "Stop interrupting me, will ya?" she said shortly.

More sentences with shortly

  • This car is blocking the way, but Mr Smith, whose it is, will be here shortly.From the entry whose
  • We’ll be sunsetting version 1.9 of the software shortly after releasing version 2.0 next quarter.From the entry sunset
  • I needn’t have washed the car: shortly after it started raining.From the entry needn't
  • James wrote a memoir of his grandmother shortly after she passed away.From the entry memoir
  • Take heart, help will arrive shortly and everything will be fine.From the entry take heart
  • They delivered a huge batch of printing yesterday, so you can expect an invoice shortly.From the entry printing
  • The helicopter despawned shortly after take-off, leaving the player in an unexpected free fall.From the entry despawn
  • The Cold War began shortly after WWII.From the entry after
  • The mammoth was frozen shortly after death.From the entry frozen
  • The generator fired up shortly after the power failure began.From the entry fire up
  • The user's desktop is displayed shortly after logon.From the entry logon
  • A Navy task force is expected to set sail shortly.From the entry set sail
  • Houdini took his secrets to the grave, as he died shortly after performing one of his most famous escapes.From the entry take to the grave
  • The acrophase of the metabolic process ran from shortly mid-morning until sunset, with the peak amplitude recorded in mid-afternoon.From the entry acrophase
  • A scrum formed around Scott Brison in the House of Commons lobby shortly after he announced his candidacy for the federal Liberal leadership.From the entry scrum
  • The tissue ulcerated shortly after exposure.From the entry ulcerate
  • Accordingly two of the club went out and shortly after returned with a Hissian, a cant word with the soldiers, for a goose.From the entry Hissian
  • Shortly after the conversation turned to the results of the recent election, John silently stood from the table, and without explanation, precipitously walked out on the dinner party.From the entry precipitously
  • The bathyphase of the metabolic process ran from late evening until shortly after the subject awoke, with the lowest point recorded in at three o'clock in the morning.From the entry bathyphase
  • Players began reporting ancient, decrepit, repeatedly power crept loot shortly after Heavy Metal went live this afternoon.2025 September 2, Austin Wood, “A new Destiny 2 event is giving players bugged 8-year-old loot from content so deleted that Bungie…. From the entry power creep
  • The pair got in touch after that proclamation and began dating shortly thereafter.2025 August 26, Jenna Amatulli, “Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announce engagement on social media”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry hard-launch
  • Swedish striker Isak was also foiled by Ortega in a one-on-one opportunity shortly before half-time.2024 January 13, Callum Matthews, “Newcastle United 2-3 Manchester City”, in BBC Sport. From the entry one-on-one
  • Some are on the tip of my tongue, and hopefully they will materialize shortly.2022 December 18, Jonathan Kahane, “Guest columnist Jonathan Kahane: Reaching the tipping point”, in Daily Hampshire Gazette, archived…. From the entry tipflation
  • Shortly after that three of them died and vets are attempting to resuscitate the other one."2016 May 18, “Three dogs die and seven more ill after drinking from the same Kent lake amid contamination fears”, in The Telegraph. From the entry fit
  • 'Why not: you, Elvira, will shortly pay a dividend, that is, have a child.'2016, Christina Stead, The Beauties and Furies, page 163. From the entry dividend
  • Lydiard was diagnosed shortly after new year following speech disturbance and subtle memory issues.2016 February 7, Caroline Davies, “Been anywhere nice this year? Brain surgery where patients are kept chatting”, in The Guardian. From the entry eloquent
  • Shortly after the era of the flood, sites associated with a culture called Erlitou began to emerge.2016 August 4, Sarah Kaplan, “Legends say China began in a great flood. Scientists just found evidence that the flood was real.”, in The…. From the entry Xia
  • We z-scored pretouch velocity and the maximum curvature change shortly after touch (0–20 ms).2015, Samuel Andrew Hires et al., “Low-noise encoding of active touch by layer 4 in the somatosensory cortex”, in eLife, volume 4, →DOI. From the entry pretouch
  • Shortly after, I was saved by women when kontraktniki were about to shoot me.2015, Arne Peter Braaksma, “Khassan Baiev, Chechnya: Operating on friends and enemies while under fire”, in Human Dignity: Eleven…. From the entry kontraktnik
  • I had coded guilds into M59 over the weekend, shortly before we were supposed to go gold.2011, Jessica Mulligan, Bridgette Patrovsky, quoting Damion Schubert, Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide, page 221. From the entry gold
  • Shortly thereafter, however, she asked her sister Tara about the term.2011 February 22, Judge Kriegler, “Undisputed Facts in the Summary Adjudication Motion”, in Shaw v. Longs Drug Stores California Inc.…. From the entry donkey punched
  • Shortly thereafter Whitlam arrived in the tally room to accept defeat.2010, Ross Fitzgerald, Stephen Holt, Alan ‘The Red Fox’ Reid: Pressman Par Excellence, page 283. From the entry tally room
  • Shortly after her arrival Amie ventured away from the sandy, palm-lined coast to explore the inland territory.2009, David A. Ross, Calico Pennants. From the entry razory
  • He called me shortly after the story crossed the wires and cursed at me nonstop for minutes.2009, Laurence H. Meyer, A Term at the Fed: An Insider's View, page 16. From the entry cross the wires
  • The Franks were lost on July 5, shortly after leaving Grenada on their cabin cruiser Reel Lucky.2007 November 5, Denyse Renne, “Lost at sea; no sign of brothers for 3 months”, in Trinidad and Tobago Express. From the entry cabin cruiser
  • Shortly before they cross the border into Herat, they pass an Afghan refugee camp.2007, Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING (2018), page 381. From the entry Herat

Meaning of shortly

  1. adverb In a short or brief time or manner; quickly.
  2. adverb In or after a short time; soon.
  3. adverb In few words.

Full definition of shortly

Questions about shortly in a sentence

How do you use shortly in a sentence?
Shortly is used as an adverb. For example: “The past perfect progressive is used for actions and situations which had continued up to a past moment or shortly before it.”
What is a short sentence with shortly?
“The tissue ulcerated shortly after exposure.”
What does shortly mean?
Shortly means in a short or brief time or manner; quickly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shortly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this page: “How to use shortly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/shortly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.