Word.ws English Dictionary

shorts

UK/ʃɔː(ɹ)ts/

shorts is the plural of short.

shorts is the third-person singular simple present indicative of short.

Noun

shorts pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A garment worn over the pelvic area ending above the knees, not covering the entire length of the leg, designed for warm weather or for sports.
    • Jessica hated covering her legs, so she usually wore shorts.
    • In 1925, boxer shorts were unleashed on the world: loose-fitting underwear for men, featuring an elastic waistband inspired by the shorts worn by boxers. It was underwear for the inner pugilist.2018 August 9, Alan Burdick, “Science has Resolved the Question of Boxers vs. Briefs”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 09 Nov...
  2. (dated, plural, plural-only) Underpants.
    • After a scare like that, you might need to change your shorts.
    • And always, when the food arrives, send something back. It's considered very sophisticated. But make sure you use colorful language. Tell him, "Waiter, this veal tastes like the inside front panel of Ferdinand Magellan's shorts. And I'm referring to the first voyage."2015, George Carlin, 3 X Carlin: An Orgy of George Including Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty, and When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
  3. (plural, plural-only, uncountable) Remnants, clippings, trimmings of production processes.
  4. (plural, plural-only) The part of milled grain sifted out which is next finer than the bran; pollard.
    • […]the first remove above bran is shorts ; the next above that is sharps1847, James Orchard Halliwell, A Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, volume II, →OCLC, page 822
  5. (plural, plural-only) Short, inferior hemp.

Meaning of short

Noun

short (plural shorts)

  1. A short circuit.
    • The circuit breaker keeps tripping because there's a short in the wiring.
  2. A short film.
    • Preceded by a Simpsons short shot in 3-D—perhaps the only thing more superfluous than a fourth Ice Age movie—Ice Age: Continental Drift finds a retinue of vaguely contemporaneous animals coping with life in the post-Pangaea age.2012 July 12, Sam Adams, AV Club, Ice Age: Continental Drift
    1. (Internet) A short-form vertical video.
    2. (Internet, broadly) A vertical video of any length.
      • long short
  3. A short version of a garment in a particular size.
    • 38 short suits fit me right off the rack.
  4. A shortstop.
    • Jones smashes a grounder between third and short.

See all 45 meanings of short

Origin of shorts

From short + -s.

Words formed from shorts

Phrases with shorts

Words that rhyme with shorts

Questions about shorts

What does shorts mean?
Shorts means a garment worn over the pelvic area ending above the knees, not covering the entire length of the leg, designed for warm weather or for sports.
What is shorts the plural of?
Shorts is the plural of short.
What part of speech is shorts?
Shorts is a noun.
How do you pronounce shorts?
Shorts is pronounced /ʃɔː(ɹ)ts/ (UK).

Words near shorts in the dictionary

  1. shortpod mustard
  2. shortrange
  3. shortribs
  4. Shortridge
  5. Shortridges
  6. shorts
  7. shorts down
  8. shorts out
  9. shortsea
  10. shortseller
  11. shortsellers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shorts (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: en-us-shorts.ogg.

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