Word.ws English Dictionary

short-change

short-change is the alternative form of shortchange.

Meaning of shortchange

Verb

shortchange (third-person singular simple present shortchanges, present participle shortchanging, simple past and past participle shortchanged)

  1. (transitive) To defraud (someone) by giving them less change than they should be given after a transaction.
    • I got shortchanged! I gave him $10 for a $5 item and he only gave me $1 back.
  2. (broadly, transitive) To deprive (someone or something) of something due; to treat unfairly; to cheat, deceive; to half-ass.
    • The elective class was easy, but in the end I was shortchanging myself by taking it.

Forms of short-change

third-person singular presentshort-changes
present participleshort-changing
past participleshort-changed
pastshort-changed

Questions about short-change

What is short-change the alternative form of?
Short-change is the alternative form of shortchange.

Words near short-change in the dictionary

  1. short-billed dowitchers
  2. short-billed marsh wren
  3. short-billed marsh wrens
  4. short-breathed
  5. short-chain
  6. short-change
  7. short-changed
  8. short-changes
  9. short-changing
  10. short-circuit
  11. short-circuit operator

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: short-change (page history and authors); shortchange (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: “short-change.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/short-change. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.