short-term
Americanadjective
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covering or applying to a relatively short period of time.
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maturing over a relatively short period of time.
a short-term loan.
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(of profit, loss, interest, etc.) of or relating to a short term, especially one year or less.
adjective
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of, for, or extending over a limited period
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finance extending over, maturing within, or required within a short period of time, usually twelve months
short-term credit
short-term capital
Etymology
Origin of short-term
First recorded in 1900–05
Explanation
Anything short-term doesn't last long. A short-term romance might be for a few weeks instead of a lifetime, and a short-term job won't provide you long-term security. The word term often applies to units of time, like a politician's term in office. This word has to do with time, but only small amounts of time: anything short-term occurs for a little while, and then it's over. A short-term illness goes away quickly, and a short-term problem won't weigh you down for long. The opposite of short-term is long-term, which refers to things happening for a greater period of time.
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.
Appeared in the February 26, 2026, print edition as 'Random Short-Term Rentals'.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 25, 2026
Grantham recounts them in The Making of a Permabear, written with Edward Chancellor and subtitled The Perils of Long-term Investing in a Short-Term World.
From Barron's • Dec. 31, 2025
That is the finding of a new research study, “Conflicting News, Negativity Bias, and Short-Term Return Predictability.”
From MarketWatch • Dec. 24, 2025
At that time, every sketch started with, "And now another episode of Short-Term Memory Man."
From Salon • Nov. 29, 2023
Initially, he trained his chatbot using what is called an LSTM, for Long Short-Term Memory — a neural network designed in the 1990s specifically for natural language.
From New York Times • Jan. 10, 2023
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.
