Word.ws English Dictionary

shortchanging

shortchanging is the present participle and gerund 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.

Questions about shortchanging

What is shortchanging the present participle and gerund of?
Shortchanging is the present participle and gerund of shortchange.

Words near shortchanging in the dictionary

  1. shortchange
  2. shortchanged
  3. shortchanger
  4. shortchangers
  5. shortchanges
  6. shortchanging
  7. shortcircuit
  8. shortcircuited
  9. shortcircuiting
  10. shortcircuits
  11. shortclothes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shortchanging (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: “shortchanging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shortchanging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.