Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SHORT'EN-ED, pp.

Made shorter; abridged; contracted.

SHORT'EN-ING, n.

Something used in cookery to make paste short or friable, as butter or lard.

SHORT'EN-ING, ppr.

Making shorter; contracting.

SHORT'-HAND, n. [short and hand.]

Short writing; a compendious method of writing by substituting characters, abbreviations or symbols for words; otherwise called stenography. – Locke.

SHORT'-JOINT-ED, a. [short and joint.]

A horse is said to be short-jointed, when the pastern is too short. – Encyc.

SHORT'-LIV-ED, a. [short and live.]

Not living or lasting long; being of short continuance; as, a short-lived race beings; short-lived pleasure; short-lived passion. – Dryden. Addison.

SHORT'LY, adv.

1. Quickly; soon; in a little time. The armies came shortly in view of each other. – Clarendon.
2. In few words; briefly; as, to express ideas more shortly in verse than in prose. – Pope.

SHORT'NER, n.

He or that which shortens. – Swift.

SHORT'NESS, n.

1. The quality of being short in space or time; little length or little duration; as, the shortness of a journey or of distance; the shortness of the days in winter; the shortness of life.
2. Fewness of words; brevity; conciseness; as, the shortness of an essay. The prayers of the church, by reason of their shortness, are easy for the memory.
3. Want of reach or the power of retention; as, the shortness of the memory. – Bacon.
4. Deficiency; imperfection; limited extent; as, the shortness of our reason. – Glanville.

SHORT'-RIB, n. [short and rib.]

One of the lower ribs; a rib shorter than the others, below the sternum; a false rib. – Wiseman.

SHORTS, n. [plur.]

The bran and coarse part of meal, in mixture.

SHORT-SIGHT', n.

Short-sightedness; myopy; vision accurate only when the object is near. – Good.

SHORT-SIGHT'ED, a. [short and sight.]

1. Not able to see far; having limited vision; in a literal sense.
2. Not able to look far into futurity; not able to understand things deep or remote; of limited intellect.

SHORT-SIGHT'ED-NESS, n.

1. A defect in vision, consisting in the inability to see things at a distance, or at the distance to which the sight ordinarily extends.
2. Defective or limited intellectual sight; inability to see far into futurity or into things deep or abstruse. – Addison.

SHORT'-WAISTED, a. [short and waist.]

Having a short waist or body. – Dryden.

SHORT-WIND'ED, a. [short and wind.]

Affected with shortness of breath; having a quick respiration; as dyspnœic and asthmatic persons. – May.

SHORT'-WING-ED, a. [short and wing.]

Having short wings; as, a short-winged hawk. – Dryden.

SHORT-WIT'TED, a.

Having little wit; not wise; of scanty intellect or judgment. – Hales.

SHOR'Y, a. [from shore.]

Lying near the shore or coast. [Little used.] – Burnet.

SHOT, n. [Sax. scyt; D. schoot, schot. See Shoot and Scot.]

1. The act of shooting; discharge of a missile weapon. He caused twenty shot of his greatest cannon to be made at the king's army. Clarendon. Note. The plural shots, may be used, but shot is used in both numbers.
2. A missile weapon, particularly a ball or bullet. Shot is properly whatever is discharged from fire-arms or cannon by the force of gunpowder. Shot used in war is of various kinds; as, round shot or balls; those for cannon made of iron, those for muskets and pistols, of lead. Secondly, double headed shot or bar shot, consisting of a bar with a round head at each end. Thirdly, chain-shot, consisting of two balls chained together. Fourthly, grape-shot, consisting of a number of balls bound together with a cord in canvass on an iron bottom. Fifthly, case shot or canister shot, consisting of a great number of small bullets in a cylindrical tin box. Sixthly, langrel or langrage, which consists of pieces of iron of any kind or shape. Small shot, denotes musket balls. – Mar. Dict.
3. Small globular masses of lead, used for killing fowls and other small animals. These are not called balls or bullets.
4. The flight of a missile weapon, or the distance which it passes from the engine; as, a cannon shot; a musket shot; a pistol shot; a bow shot.
5. A reckoning; charge or proportional share of expense. [See Scot.] Shot of a cable, in seamen's language, the splising of two cables together; or the whole length of two cables thus united. A ship will ride easier in deep water with one shot of cable thus lengthened, than with three short cables. – Encyc.

SHOT, v. [pret. and pp. of shoot.]

SHOT'-BELT-ED, a.

Wearing a belt carrying shot.

SHOTE, n. [Sax. sceota; from shooting, darting.]

1. A fish resembling the trout. Carew.
2. A young hog, or a half grown unfatted hog. [See Shoot.]

SHOT'-FREE, a. [shot and free.]

1. Free from charge; exempted from any share of expense; scot-free.
2. Not to be injured by shot. [Not used.] – Feltham.
3. Unpunished. [Not used.]

SHOT'-HOLE, n.

A hole made by a bullet discharged.