fall short
Definition
C1 to fail to reach an amount or standard that was expected or hoped for, causing disappointment: August car sales fell short of the industry's expectations.Failing and doing badlyScarce, inadequate and not enoughLacking things
(Definition of fall short from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Scarce, inadequate and not enough, but you might be interested in these topics from the Size and quantity topic area:
- Also, extra, and in addition
- Augmenting and supplementing
- Available and accessible
- Becoming and making smaller or less
- Becoming bigger
- Big and quite big
- Enlarging and inflating
- Enormous
- Enough
- Extremely small
- General words for size and amount
- Increasing and intensifying
- Large in number or quantity
- Masses and large amounts of things
- Maximum and minimum
- Medium-sized
- Merely and barely
- Plenty and abundant
- Small
- Small in number and quantity
- Some and quite
- Someone, anyone, no one or everyone
- Something, anything, nothing, and everything
- Things collected in lines or rings
- Things remaining
- Too much and unnecessary
- Unavailable and inaccessible
- Unlimited
- Words meaning small pieces and amounts
Browse the Dictionary
Browse the Thesaurus
SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- be at a premium idiom
- be thin on the ground idiom
- dearth noun
- deficiency noun
- deficient adjective
- lack noun
- lack verb
- lacking adjective
- like gold dust idiom
- long on sth and short on sth idiom
- meagre adjective
- paltry adjective
- peanut noun (LITTLE MONEY)
- scant adjective
- scantily adverb
- scanty adjective
- scarce adjective
- scarcity noun
- shy adjective (LESS)
- starve verb
You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Word of the Day
be under a cloud
to not be trusted or popular because people think you have done something bad
Blog
Read our blog about how the English language behaves.
New Words
Find words and meanings that have just started to be used in English, and let us know what you think of them.
