short circuit

• short-circuit

short + circuit

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short circuit

Wikipedia

short circuit (plural short circuits)

1. (electrical engineering) A usually unintentional connection of low resistance or impedance in a circuit such that excessive and often damaging current flows in it.
2. (by extension) This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
   • 1990 February 11, Tatiana Schreiber, quoting Sharon Jaffe, “End the Occupation!”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 30, page 10:

     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.

   • 2020 August 19, Damian Carrington, quoting Greta Thunberg et. al., “Another two years lost to climate inaction, says Greta Thunberg”, in The Guardian‎:

     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

• short

short circuit (third-person singular simple present short circuits, present participle short circuiting, simple past and past participle short circuited)

1. (transitive) To cause a short circuit in.
   • 1984, Tom Clancy, “The Eighth Day: Friday, 10 December”, in The Hunt for Red October, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, →ISBN, page 193:

     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.

2. (intransitive) To undergo a short circuit.
3. (transitive, by extension) To force termination of an ongoing process before its natural conclusion, by bypassing one or more intermediary steps.
   • 1998, Catherine Nickerson, The Web of Iniquity:

     is temporarily successful attempt to smear Redfield is an effort to short-circuit the narrative into premature and mistaken resolution.

   • 2002, Jim Kasper, Short Cycle Selling: Beating Your Competitors in the Sales Race:

     You do not need to follow your entire sales cycle if the customer wants to short-circuit it for you.

   • 2003, Gina Hens-Piazza, Nameless, Blameless, and Without Shame: Two Cannibal Mothers Before a King:

     My mother, determined to short-circuit my outcry, would match my objections by pointing out an inherent reward for doing such work.

4. (transitive, by extension) To impede or disrupt.
   • 2016 November 28, Mike Vorkunov, “Despite Flash of Rose’s Prime, Knicks Are Dazed by Westbrook and Thunder”, in The New York Times‎:

     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.”

5. (transitive) To bypass, especially by overhastiness.
   • 1982 February 6, Michael Bronski, “A Very Stale Crisp”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 28, page 11:

     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.

   • 2014, Zahi Zalloua, Reading Unruly, page 172:

     By multiplying interpretive registers, however, Baudelaire's text short-circuits the desire for identification as well as erodes any rigid allegorical mapping.

6. (transitive, computing) To terminate a loop before the declared termination condition is met, or a conditional before all conditions have been tested for.
   • 2002, Paul Kimmel, Visual Basic.Net Unleashed:

     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".

   • 2002, Jose Mojico, C# and VB.NET Conversion Pocket Reference:

     If you would like to short-circuit, you must replace "And" with the "AndAlso" keyword and "Or" with the "OrElse" keyword, as follows....

   • 2006: Jay Hillard & Stephen Teilhet, C# Cookbook

     The "Demand" is done to ensure that you have indeed been granted this permission before using the "Assert" to short-circuit the stackwalk.

• Senses 3, 4 and 5 usually use the hyphenated spelling short-circuit.

• short out

• short circuit operator

• → Maltese: xort