Short-handed

adj, adv

adj, adv ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Alternative form of shorthanded. alt-of, alternative

    "His final goal was short-handed and came with less than two minutes left."

Adjective
  1. 1
    inadequate in number of workers or assistants etc. wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Alternative form of shorthanded. alt-of, alternative

    "The present Section, where the vessel sails short-handed, permits the payment of shorthand pay, but there is a clause in that contract which hoists it if the vessel sailing short-handed is due to the misconduct of any crew member."

Synonyms

All synonyms
short-staffedundermannedunderstaffed

Example

More examples

"We are very busy and short-handed."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.