fall short

1. 1.

   fail to meet (expectations or standards)

   Synonymscome short

   Broaderdisappoint

Questions about fall short

What does fall short mean?

fall short means "fail to meet (expectations or standards)".

What is another word for fall short?

Close synonyms include come short. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is fall short a common word?

fall short is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.