SHORT-HANDED

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does short-handed mean? 

• SHORT-HANDED (adjective)
  The adjective SHORT-HANDED has 1 sense:

1. inadequate in number of workers or assistants etc.

  Familiarity information: SHORT-HANDED used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHORT-HANDED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inadequate in number of workers or assistants etc.

Synonyms:

short-handed; short-staffed; undermanned; understaffed

Context example:

overcrowded and understaffed hospitals

Similar:

inadequate; unequal (lacking the requisite qualities or resources to meet a task)

 Context examples 

It weren't quite a chapel, but it seemed more solemn like; and then, says you, Ben Gunn was short-handed—no chapling, nor so much as a Bible and a flag, you says.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I preserve, too, and in the pheasant months I usually have a house-party, so that it would not do to be short-handed.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf Larsen short-handed.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I’m just off a two-yearer in an eight-knot tramp, short-handed at that, and I wants a rest.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)