Shortage

//ˈʃɔː(ɹ)tɪd͡ʒ// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A lack or deficiency; an insufficient amount. countable, uncountable

    "The admirable smoothness of the riding also reflected the greatest credit on those who, despite the difficulties caused by the shortage of men and materials, have succeeded in maintaining the track in such first-class order."

  2. 2
    the property of being an amount by which something is less than expected or required wordnet
  3. 3
    an acute insufficiency wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dearthdeficitabsenceadulterationarreararrearage

Example

More examples

"This city will suffer from an acute water shortage unless it rains soon."

Etymology

From short + -age.

Related phrases

skills shortagewater shortagelack ofreduced food

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