noun
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Etymology
Origin of shortage
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How does shortage compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
A shortage is a lack of something, especially a severe lack. A drought is a shortage of water. When there's a shortage, there's not enough of something. If you don't have enough money to pay your bills, you have a shortage of money. A bad football team may have a shortage of good players. This kind of shortage is like a deficit or shortfall. A shortage can also be a severe dearth of something, like a famine, which is a lack of food. If there's a drought because of little rainfall, that's a serious shortage.
Vocabulary lists containing shortage
World War I
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World War II
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Paltry Parlance: Synonyms for "Few"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The chip shortage is damaging shares of companies that build devices and boosting the ones supplying the parts.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026
But the class will not be on offer to S1 pupils next year because of a shortage of design technology teachers.
From BBC • Jun. 8, 2026
They did not create the shortage, but their products are being repriced by it.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 8, 2026
And at a press conference on the shortage of non-fossil fuels needed to decarbonise air travel, EU regulations on the minimum amounts of such fuels required in aircraft tanks came under fire.
From Barron's • Jun. 8, 2026
Their prison hospital X-ray machines were in a decrepit state, and there was a chronic shortage of even first-line antibiotics.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
