fall short
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Fail to meet expectations or requirements
Literally: come up insufficiently in height
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The trainers suggest that, as guards, they fell short of expectations.
The state has, in a sense, to define what proper care is, or at least what falls short of it.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “fall short” mean?
Fail to meet expectations or requirements Literally: come up insufficiently in height
Is “fall short” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.