shortage Definition
☆ short·age (-ij)
noun
a deficiency in the quantity or amount needed or expected, or the extent of this; deficit
shortage Synonyms
shortage Usage Examples
Preposition: of
- manpower: Can a security company base a policy on published police response times or local known shortages of police manpower?
- midwife: Overworked, and underpaid, Dutch midwives point out that, in recent years, there has been an increasing shortage of new midwives.
- dentist: There is a risk that these targets will not be net and shortages of dentists will continue.
Converse of object
- alleviate: Helping healthcare assistants to gain higher qualifications could alleviate the serious shortage of nurses in Britain.
- tackle: Ask your local councilors what they are doing to tackle the housing shortage.
- overcome: And by establishing national, coordinated networks of tissue banks, they can overcome the shortage of human material for research and testing.
- exacerbate: They also believe these policies " prevent willing and healthy members of the community from giving blood and exacerbate the current blood shortage.
- relieve: Zimbabweans are adopting increasingly desperate measures China has signed a $ 1.3bn deal with Zimbabwe to help relieve an acute shortage of energy.
- worsen: The large population movements in 1969 and 1971, described above, had the effect of worsening the housing shortage in West Belfast.
Adjective modifier
- acute: In some areas there is an acute shortage of labor.
- chronic: In some areas, this reflects a chronic shortage of doctors.
- severe: The early 1960s had seen severe food shortages across the whole of India.
- dire: At present there is a dire shortage with approximately one interpreter to every thousand BSL users.
- desperate: In the South of England, a desperate shortage of housing has created areas of high demand.
- serious: The Clansman's main failing is its serious shortage of open deck areas.
Noun used with modifier
- skill: A skill gap is different from a skill shortage.
- manpower: Hence the Electoral Commission had a significant manpower shortage.
- labor: The labor shortages in the booming economy of South-East England have attracted many workers from abroad.
- food: I hear the driver ask the first farmer, " In times of food shortage, which animal would you sell last?
- wartime: I suppose it is amazing that they were printed at all, in view of the wartime shortages.
Browse dictionary entries near shortage
- ‹ short-winded
- ‹ short wavelength band
- ‹ short wavelength
- ‹ short-waisted
- ‹ short ton
- ‹ short the basis
- ‹ short-term loss
- ‹ short-term gain
- ‹ short-term debt
- ‹ short-term
- shortbread ›
- shortcake ›
- shortchange ›
- shortcoming ›
- shortcut ›
- shorten ›
- shortening ›
- shorter ›
- shortfall ›
- shortgrass ›

