Shorty

How to spell shorty

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce shorty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does shorty mean?

1. nounAn informal, often affectionate name for a person of small height.

Shorty in a sentence

• His teammates called him shorty because he was the smallest player on the court.

• As the family shorty, she always needed a stool to reach the top shelf.

Where does shorty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a casual, affectionate formation built on the everyday adjective 'short', which comes from the Old English 'sceort', meaning 'not long' or 'cut off'. That Old English root is related to words across the Germanic languages and ultimately ties back to the idea of something cut or shortened. Adding the suffix '-y', long used in English to make familiar or diminutive nicknames (think 'doggy' or 'sweetie'), turned the plain adjective into a friendly noun for a short person. The form appears in informal English from at least the nineteenth century. In the late twentieth century it gained fresh life in American hip-hop and street slang as an affectionate term for a young woman or partner, which is why the spelling keeps that breezy '-y' ending rather than the '-ie' some other nicknames take.

How the word is built

• short (low in height)
• -y (familiar/diminutive noun suffix)