Word.ws English Dictionary

short of

short of phrase: except; but; without resorting to; up to the point of.

Phrase

short of

  1. Except; but; without resorting to; up to the point of.
    • He tried everything short of lending her the money himself.
    • Short of a miracle, nothing/little short of kneeling before your boss will do.
  2. Insufficiently equipped with.
    • He's a nice person, but a bit short of brains.
    Synonyms:
    pushed
  3. Less than.
    • An Olympic athlete cannot perform at any level short of world-class.
    • By Sunday night, police said only one remained in a life-threatening condition: a railway staff member who tried to stop the attack. Police called his actions “nothing short of heroic”.2025 November 3, Alex Kozul-Wright and News Agencies, “UK train stabbing attack – how it unfolded and what we know now”, in Aljazeera

short of meaning in Kannada

short of in Kannada

ಕಡಮೆಯ, ಸಾಕಾಗದ

Examples of short of in a sentence

  • "Short of shooting us all in cold blood how's that going to help you, Mr.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
  • We'll give them every support, short of help. (laugh track)1986 January 23, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Smoke Screen”, in Yes, Prime Minister, season 1, episode 3, spoken by Richard Wharton...

Synonyms of short of

Words formed from short of

Questions about short of

What does short of mean?
Short of means except; but; without resorting to; up to the point of.
What is short of in Kannada?
Short of in Kannada is ಕಡಮೆಯ, ಸಾಕಾಗದ. See Short of meaning in Kannada.
How do you use short of in a sentence?
"Short of shooting us all in cold blood how's that going to help you, Mr.
What part of speech is short of?
Short of is a phrase.

Words near short of in the dictionary

  1. short measure
  2. short message service
  3. short meter
  4. Short money
  5. short o
  6. short of
  7. short of a length
  8. short of breath
  9. short on looks
  10. short oo
  11. short order

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: short of (page history and authors); short of (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “short of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/short_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.