Definition
"Short" operates in law as a modifier with three distinct clusters of meaning, each arising in different doctrinal contexts.
1. Brief or limited in duration or extent. A short cause, short notice, or short summons is one abbreviated relative to the standard form — reduced in time, scope, or procedural requirements. Courts and procedural rules use "short" to designate accelerated or simplified tracks: a matter fit for short-cause calendar is one estimated to require less than a threshold amount of trial time.
2. Incomplete or summary in form. A short plea or short entry is one stated without full elaboration — not setting out all particulars, but reciting the substance in condensed form. The implication is that something is present but abbreviated, not that anything is missing by defect.
3. The short position in securities and commodities markets. A party is "short" when they have sold an asset they do not yet own, anticipating a price decline that will allow them to buy it back at a lower price and profit from the difference. This usage underlies the concepts of short selling, short-swing profits, and related regulatory frameworks. The opposite of a long position, where the trader holds the asset outright.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Having a small distance from one end or edge to another; having little duration; abbreviated or condensed.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not long; having brief length or linear extension; not extended in time; having very limited duration.
The common and legal meanings largely overlap for senses 1 and 2 — "short" in law simply applies the ordinary sense of "brief" or "condensed" to procedural contexts. The divergence arises entirely in sense 3: a trader being "short" has no counterpart in ordinary English. A person unfamiliar with market terminology will not recognize that "short" describes a structural position of having sold something not yet owned, carrying significant legal consequences under securities law.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Short cause: A matter designated for an abbreviated trial track, typically because the estimated hearing time falls below a jurisdictional threshold.
Short notice: Notice of a shorter period than the standard required, either authorized by rule, statute, or court order, or challenged as inadequate.
Short plea: A plea stated in abbreviated form rather than with full particulars.
Short position / Short selling: The sale of a security or commodity the seller does not currently own, with the obligation to acquire and deliver it. Regulated under federal securities law and exchange rules.
Short-swing profits: Profits realized by a corporate insider from a purchase and sale (or sale and purchase) of the company's equity securities within a six-month period, subject to disgorgement under Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
Short-form merger: A statutory merger procedure available when a parent corporation owns a threshold percentage of a subsidiary's shares (often 90% or more), allowing the merger to be completed without a vote of the subsidiary's minority shareholders.
Short-term capital gain: A gain on the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for one year or less, taxed at ordinary income rates rather than the preferential long-term capital gains rate.
Why It Matters in Research
The principal trap in researching "short" is that historical dictionary entries treat it almost entirely as a procedural modifier — short cause, short plea, short notice — while the most legally consequential modern uses of "short" arise in securities and tax law, areas that nineteenth-century legal dictionaries did not address in any systematic way. A researcher encountering "short" in a historical source should not assume it carries the market-position meaning; that usage was confined to broker and exchange parlance and was not well integrated into legal vocabulary until the twentieth century.
Anderson's note that "three months is not 'shortly,' that is, a reasonable time" flags a separate but important interpretive issue: where a contract or statute requires performance "shortly" or "within a short time," courts will construe the term against the facts rather than assigning it a fixed period. Researchers looking at older contracts or equitable doctrines should treat "shortly" as a reasonableness standard, not a defined interval.
For securities research, "short" is a term of art whose legal significance multiplies quickly: short selling itself is subject to exchange rules and SEC regulation; short-swing profits trigger a strict-liability disgorgement remedy under Section 16(b) regardless of actual misuse of inside information; and short positions figure in manipulation and market-abuse analysis. The term also appears in options language — a short call or short put — which introduces additional complexity not present in the basic definition.
For tax research, the short/long distinction for capital gains is one of the most practically significant classifications in the Internal Revenue Code, with holding period rules that have changed multiple times over the Code's history. Researchers examining pre-1986 or pre-1997 materials should verify the applicable holding period threshold and rate differential for the period in question, as both have shifted.
Procedural uses of "short" — short-cause calendars, shortened notice periods — are almost entirely governed by local rules and court orders. What qualifies as a "short cause" in one federal district may differ from another. Researchers should not assume a uniform standard.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law captures the three broad senses accurately for its era: duration (short cause, short lease, short notice), form (short plea, short entry), and market position (short in the broker/wager context, cross-referenced to PUT and WAGER). The entry is compact, reflecting that "short" was not itself a term of deep doctrinal content but rather a common modifier applied across multiple legal contexts.
Anderson's acknowledgment of the broker usage — "as opposed to long, in the language of brokers" — is notable precisely because it treats the market-position meaning as a specialized trade usage rather than a term of general legal significance. That framing reflects the late nineteenth-century state of the law, when short selling was controversial and sporadically regulated, but had not yet generated the dense statutory and regulatory framework it carries today. Modern researchers should treat Anderson's broker-language reference as a historical waypoint, not a complete account.
The observation about "shortly" not meaning a fixed reasonable time anticipates a body of interpretive case law on time-of-performance questions that remains active in contract disputes.
Jurisdictional Note
Short-form merger thresholds vary by state corporation statute — Delaware sets the threshold at 90% ownership; other states differ. Federal securities law governs short selling and short-swing profits uniformly for exchange-listed and reporting companies, but state law may address short selling in other contexts. Tax holding-period rules are federal and uniform under the Internal Revenue Code, though state income tax treatment of capital gains varies.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia: Mergers and Acquisitions — Short-Form Mergers; Federal Securities — Insider Trading — Short-Swing Profits
The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia: Gross Income — Short-Term vs. Long-Term Capital Gains