caught short

Idioms  

1. Found to be lacking something one needs, especially money, as in Can you pay the check? I seem to be caught short. This idiom uses short in the sense of “lacking money,” a usage dating from the early 1500s.

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Example Sentences

“TIPS are too far out,” he said, and if they’re not holding to maturity, he doesn’t want clients to get caught short if they have to buy or sell.

From MarketWatch • May 6, 2026

Anyone caught short on a day like that risked being crushed.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 25, 2025

Airlines say they also have staffed up since being caught short when travel began to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring and summer of 2022.

From Seattle Times • May 23, 2024

Another time she gets caught short when hill walking and with her trousers still around her ankles overhears one of her children tell a passer-by that "mummy is off having a wee".

From BBC • Feb. 4, 2024

For a girl who’d spent her whole life perfecting the art of arguing—with my brothers, my mother, my mule, and until just a few months ago with my daddy—suddenly I was caught short.

From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan