short

The Old English word sceort simply meant 'not long.' Behind it lies Proto-Germanic *skurtaz, traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root for 'cutting' — and that buried image is the key to the whole family. To make something short, you cut it. A short thing is one that has been clipped before reaching full size. Keep that picture of scissors in mind and the rest of the family falls into place.

First, short stretched along three axes. The original axis is length: a short rope, a short man, a short skirt. Then it slid into time: a short visit, a short while, and the adverb shortly, meaning 'within a short time' — that is, soon. (Notice that shortly is about time, not size.) Finally it moved into quantity and sufficiency: if you run short of cash, your money has been 'cut off' before it covers what you need. This last sense — short = not enough — powers most of the compounds.

From 'too short in length' came the simple verb shorten (-en = 'make'): to make something shorter, like shortening a dress or a deadline.

From 'not enough' came a cluster of nouns about deficiency. A shortage is a state of being short of something — a food shortage, a labor shortage. A shortfall is the gap when an amount 'falls short' of what was expected — a budget shortfall. A shortcoming is literally 'coming up short': you reach for a standard and fall just below it, so a shortcoming is a weakness or fault. All three say the same thing — something is missing — from slightly different angles.

From 'short in distance' came shortcut: a route that 'cuts' your journey short, a shorter way to a goal (and now also a quick-and-dirty method, or a desktop icon). And shorthand is 'short handwriting' — a compressed symbol system for writing as fast as people speak, where hand means 'handwriting,' as in a neat hand.

Two surprising cousins hide in your wardrobe. Shirt and skirt both come from the same Germanic root as short — they were originally 'the cut/short garment.' Skirt entered through Old Norse and shirt through Old English, which is why two words for clothing trace back to the idea of 'cut short.' Outside Germanic, Latin gives us curt (abruptly short in speech) from the same cutting idea, and brev (brief) as the Latin way to say 'short in duration.'

The pattern across the whole family is steady: take the picture of something cut off before its full extent, then ask whether it is cut short in length, in time, or in amount. Length gives short and shorten; amount gives shortage, shortfall, shortcoming; distance gives shortcut; speed of writing gives shorthand.