Word.ws English Dictionary

take someone up short

take someone up short verb: to check someone or give them a curt answer.

Verb

take someone up short (third-person singular simple present takes someone up short, present participle taking someone up short, simple past took someone up short, past participle taken someone up short)

  1. (dated) To check someone or give them a curt answer.

Forms of take someone up short

third-person singular presenttakes someone up short
present participletaking someone up short
pasttook someone up short
past participletaken someone up short

Questions about take someone up short

What does take someone up short mean?
Take someone up short means to check someone or give them a curt answer.
What part of speech is take someone up short?
Take someone up short is a verb.
What is the past tense of take someone up short?
The past tense of take someone up short is took someone up short.

Words near take someone up short in the dictionary

  1. take someone down the garden path
  2. take someone for all they've got
  3. take someone out back
  4. take someone to brown town
  5. take someone to the grave
  6. take someone up short
  7. take someone's arm
  8. take someone's breath away
  9. take someone's fancy
  10. take someone's head off
  11. take someone's life

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take someone up 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.

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