short circuit
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: short circuits
form: short circuiting
form: short circuited
form: short circuited
form: short-circuit
Etymology: short + circuit
Senses: examples: text: The Jewish Community Relations Council does work on racism and multicultural issues, but they don't address anti-Arab racism in this work. They see that as 'political.' It's like they have a short-circuit inside them.
ref: 1990 February 11, Tatiana Schreiber, quoting Sharon Jaffe, “End the Occupation!”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 30, page 10:
text: Just the thought of being in a crisis that we cannot buy, build or invest our way out of seems to create some kind of collective mental short-circuit. This mix of ignorance, denial and unawareness is the very heart of the problem
ref: 2020 August 19, Damian Carrington, quoting Greta Thunberg et. al., “Another two years lost to climate inaction, says Greta Thunberg”, in The Guardian:
text: In the motor control room aft, a crewman crashed against the main electrical switchboard, short-circuiting it with his body, and all power aboard was lost.
ref: 1984, Tom Clancy, “The Eighth Day: Friday, 10 December”, in The Hunt for Red October, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, →ISBN, page 193:
glosses: To cause a short circuit in.
glosses: To undergo a short circuit.
examples: text: [H]is temporarily successful attempt to smear Redfield is an effort to short-circuit the narrative into premature and mistaken resolution.
ref: 1998, Catherine Nickerson, The Web of Iniquity:
text: You do not need to follow your entire sales cycle if the customer wants to short-circuit it for you.
ref: 2002, Jim Kasper, Short Cycle Selling: Beating Your Competitors in the Sales Race:
text: My mother, determined to short-circuit my outcry, would match my objections by pointing out an inherent reward for doing such work.
ref: 2003, Gina Hens-Piazza, Nameless, Blameless, and Without Shame: Two Cannibal Mothers Before a King:
glosses: To force termination of an ongoing process before its natural conclusion, by bypassing one or more intermediary steps.
examples: text: At times, the Knicks’ offense looked short-circuited. Anthony, despite his cold hand, kept shooting. / “They all feel good, to be honest with you,” Anthony said. “It wasn’t long, it wasn’t short, they were bouncing off the rim, they were chippers, the same shot I hit all the time so I can’t stop taking my shots.”
ref: 2016 November 28, Mike Vorkunov, “Despite Flash of Rose’s Prime, Knicks Are Dazed by Westbrook and Thunder”, in The New York Times:
glosses: To impede or disrupt.
examples: text: By insisting that "style" is the only way to exert your undeserving self upon the world these books short-circuit the chance for, and even the need for, the possibility of change in the lives of people or the culture.
ref: 1982 February 6, Michael Bronski, “A Very Stale Crisp”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 28, page 11:
text: By multiplying interpretive registers, however, Baudelaire's text short-circuits the desire for identification as well as erodes any rigid allegorical mapping.
ref: 2014, Zahi Zalloua, Reading Unruly, page 172:
glosses: To bypass, especially by overhastiness.
examples: text: For example, to short-circuit the "LoggedIn()" or "LogIn()" "if" conditional, replace the "Or" with "OrElse" and the statement is interpreted to mean "if not logged in, then log in".
ref: 2002, Paul Kimmel, Visual Basic.Net Unleashed:
text: If you would like to short-circuit, you must replace "And" with the "AndAlso" keyword and "Or" with the "OrElse" keyword, as follows....
ref: 2002, Jose Mojico, C# and VB.NET Conversion Pocket Reference:
text: The "Demand" is done to ensure that you have indeed been granted this permission before using the "Assert" to short-circuit the stackwalk.
ref: 2006, Jay Hillard, Stephen Teilhet, C# Cookbook:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To terminate a loop before the declared termination condition is met, or a conditional before all conditions have been tested for.
Synonyms: short out
Derived terms: short circuit operator