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quality or state of being short; want of reach or extension; brevity; deficiency; as, the shortness of a journey; the shortness of the days in winter; the shortness of an essay; the shortness of the memory; a shortness of provisions; shortness of breath.

nt sore throat, croup, etc., especially such as tends to produce suffocation, choking, or shortness of breath. Angina pectoris, a peculiarly painful disease, so named from a sense of suffocating contraction or tightening of the lower part of the chest; -- called also breast pang, spasm of the chest.…

Ungulata, whose were first found in the gypsum quarries near Paris; characterized by the shortness and feebleness of their canine teeth (whence the name).

The state or condition of being brachycephalic; shortness of head.

Shortness of duration; briefness of time; as, the brevity of human life.

Affected with shortness of breath; relating to dyspn

A condition of the eye in which, through shortness of the eyeball or fault of the refractive media, the rays of light come to a focus behind the retina; farsightedness; -- called also hyperopia. Cf. Emmetropia.

The state or quality of being momentary; shortness of duration.

come brown. The plant grows in rich pastures and is proverbial for rapidity of growth and shortness of duration. It has a pleasant smell, and is largely used as food. It is also cultivated from spawn.

uity, dogmatism. They have something venerable and oracular in that unadorned gravity and shortness in the expression. Pope. -- O*rac"u*lar*ly, adv. -- O*rac"u*lar*ness, n.

In a puffing manner; with vehement breathing or shortness of breath; with exaggerated praise.

Affected with shortness of breath; having a quick, difficult respiration, as dyspnoic and asthmatic persons. May.

Impeded motion of the tongue because of the shortness of the frænum, or of the adhesion of its margins to the gums. Dunglison.

thing soever; -- used indefinitely. "What after so befall." Chaucer. Whether it were the shortness of his foresight, the strength of his will, . . . or what it was. Bacon.