Word.ws English Dictionary

shortest

UK/ˈʃɔːtɪst//ˈʃɔɹtɪst/

shortest is the superlative form of short.

Meaning of short

Adjective

short (comparative shorter, superlative shortest)

  1. Having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.
    Synonyms:
    low, narrow, slim, shallow
    Antonyms:
    long, tall, high, broad, deep
  2. Of a person, living being, or object, having a comparatively small height.
    • Nhung Ngo had the shortest legs at Site-43. She was the shortest member of staff, two inches beneath the positively elfin Delfina Ibanez, and yet Lillian found her inexplicably difficult to shake. Power-walking down the halls didn't do the trick, as it always did when Wettle-dodging, since the...2022 September 22, HarryBlank, “Mind Over Matter”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 23 May 2024
    Antonyms:
    tall
  3. Having little duration.
    • Our meeting was a short six minutes today. Every day for the past month it’s been at least twenty minutes long.
    Synonyms:
    brief, concise
    Antonyms:
    long
  4. Of a word or phrase, constituting an abbreviation (for another) or shortened form (of another).
    • "Phone" is short for "telephone" and "asap" short for "as soon as possible".
  5. Of a fielder or fielding position, that is relatively close to the batsman.
    Antonyms:
    long
  6. Of a ball, bowled so that it bounces relatively far from the batsman.

See all 45 meanings of short

Words formed from shortest

Phrases with shortest

Questions about shortest

What is shortest the superlative form of?
Shortest is the superlative form of short.
How do you pronounce shortest?
Shortest is pronounced /ˈʃɔːtɪst/ (UK).

Words near shortest in the dictionary

  1. shorter-run
  2. shorter-term
  3. shorteralls
  4. shorters
  5. Shortess
  6. shortest
  7. shortest haul
  8. shortest remaining time
  9. shortest remaining times
  10. shortest-acting
  11. shortest-distance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shortest (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-shortest.wav.

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