Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Short \Short\, adv.
   In a short manner; briefly; limitedly; abruptly; quickly; as,
   to stop short in one's course; to turn short.

         He was taken up very short, and adjudged corrigible for
         such presumptuous language.              --Howell.

   {To sell short} (Stock Exchange), to sell, for future
      delivery, what the party selling does not own, but hopes
      to buy at a lower rate.