Word.ws English Dictionary

understaff

understaff verb: to furnish with too few staff; to staff inadequately.

Verb

understaff (third-person singular simple present understaffs, present participle understaffing, simple past and past participle understaffed)

  1. (transitive) To furnish with too few staff; to staff inadequately.

Noun

understaff pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) Staff (employees) who are subordinate to other staff.

Forms of understaff

third-person singular presentunderstaffs
present participleunderstaffing
past participleunderstaffed
pastunderstaffed

Origin of understaff

From under- + staff.

Questions about understaff

What does understaff mean?
Understaff means to furnish with too few staff; to staff inadequately.
What part of speech is understaff?
Understaff can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of understaff?
The past tense of understaff is understaffed.

Words near understaff in the dictionary

  1. underspokes
  2. underspread
  3. underspun
  4. undersquare
  5. understable
  6. understaff
  7. understaffed
  8. understaffing
  9. understaffings
  10. understaffs
  11. understage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: understaff (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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