short-staffed

British  

adjective

1. lacking an adequate number of staff, assistants, etc

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Explanation

If a business is short-staffed, it has fewer workers than usual. When a small cafe is short-staffed, servers might have to help wash dishes and ring customers up at the cash register. A short-staffed workplace suffers from an inadequate number of employees. This can be an ongoing problem: "Don't go to that grocery store, they're constantly short-staffed and the lines are always too long." It can also be a temporary situation, like the day several librarians happened to call in sick, leaving the library short-staffed. The term is from the "having too few" sense of short and the verb staff, "provide with workers."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

short-staffed

Assessing what went wrong after a boy died by drowning in 1985, on a day when she was short-staffed, Ms. Fash says she began to question her boss’s tight control over the system.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026

"The challenge really is the number of patients that are coming in. We are short-staffed at the moment," Perez said.

From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2026

If the IRS is short-staffed, that puts the onus on taxpayers to make sure everything is correct and accurate on their returns.

From MarketWatch ● Jan. 8, 2026

What’s Next: Duffy has been trying to hire air-traffic controllers, who were short-staffed even before the shutdown.

From Barron's ● Nov. 10, 2025

“I’ll be right back. We’re short-staffed today, so I’m wearing all the hats.”

From "Red Flags and Butterflies" by Sheryl Azzam