What does short-handed mean in English?

You can learn short-handed Pronunciation, Grammar & Synonyms in this most authoritative English Dictionary.

short-handed Meaning, Definition, Pronunciation, Grammar & Synonyms❤️

0 If a company or organization is short-handed, it does not have the usual or necessary number of workers:
- Some hospitals are so short-handed that doctors have to work 20-hour shifts.
1 not having the usual or necessary number of workers:
- We’ve got two people out sick so we’re short-handed today.
2 not having the usual or necessary number of workers:
- The industry heads into this crucial period shorthanded due to a paperwork problem.
- leave sb short-handed The state's crackdown on illegal immigration has left farmers short-handed.

To-day garages are short-handed because they cannot get the type of really efficient garage foreman that they must have.
The company state that to open waiting-rooms would necessitate the provision of a staff which, as they are short-handed, they are unable to supply.
They make extra demands on the police, who are already short-handed.
But that seems to indicate a considerable amount of efficiency, notwithstanding that the inspectors are somewhat short-handed.
It is that our police have been working short-handed.
It is because of its remarkable recruiting that frequently it has been able to lend squadrons to other cavalry regiments which are short-handed.
Under the present system they have to coal this ship and that ship, and they are short-handed to begin with.
So short-handed are some of the squadrons that leave entitlements cannot be fulfilled.