shortfall
The government's programme to grow cash crops for export is a double-edged sword because it has created a local food shortage.政府制定的种植经济作物以出口的计划是一把双刃剑，因为该计划造成了当地粮食短缺。
There's a shortage of cheap housing in the region.这一地区缺乏廉价的住房。
Schools nationwide are experiencing a shortage of teachers.
There's a shortage of cheap accommodation .
The government admitted that there was a petrol shortage, but warned people against panic buying.政府承认汽油短缺，但告诫人们不必抢购。

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Lacking things
bankrupt
bankruptcy
be hard up (for something)idiom
bereft
chronic disease
hour
if it wasn't/weren't forphrase
in someone's hour of needidiom
inappeasable
lack
minus
scrape
scrape the bottom of the barrelidiom
scream
scream (out) for somethingidiom
shy
skimpily
starve someone/something of something
starved
taken

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Scarce, inadequate and not enough

shortage | American Dictionary

shortage
noun[ C ]
us/ˈʃɔr·t̬ɪdʒ/
a lack of something needed:
There is a severe shortage of low-cost housing in the city.

shortage | Business English

shortage
noun[ C ]
uk /ˈʃɔːtɪdʒ/us
a situation in which there is less of something than people want or need:
a shortage of sthNew Orleans is suffering from an acute shortage of housing.
California faces a shortage of college-educated workers that could slow its economic growth.
an energy/food/water shortage
a labour/skills/staff shortage
 no shortage of sth
a lot of something:
He has no shortage of ambition or energy.
There is no shortage of new land to build on.

Examples of shortage

shortage
The magazine also predicted that closures would accelerate, possibly leading to a shortage of supply if the transition period was too short.
Overall, however, there was no shortage of resources; the main anxiety for the project team related to time and the pressure to deliver successful outcomes.
The shortage of both labor and development capital restricted families to exploiting their land extensively by woodcutting, or through specialized farming, as in market gardens.
If one factory did not pollute the water, downstream factories could use the same water and there would be no shortage.
Over time, the lack of fertiliser impacted with increasing severity on the yields of plantations already suffering from the effects of fuel shortages.
However, occurrence of outbreaks and periods of staff shortage meant that collaborators found it difficult always to follow this regime.
However, occurrence of outbreaks and periods of staff shortages meant that collaborators found it difficult to always follow this regime.
As in 1822, severe weather during the previous autumn had destroyed crops and resulted in food shortages during the early part of the year.
The country's dependence on imported merchandise made it vulnerable to supply disruptions, with shortages creating opportunities for ' profiteering ' by those with access to scarce goods.
At home there were food, fuel and monetary shortages.
At times of grain shortage, guards were often sent to the boundaries to prevent grain movements.
Virtually all people in the research area are well aware of the general shortage of arable land and the competition over it.
In a full conversion to organic farming, they predict shortages in the meat supply if meat consumption continues to remain high.
Officials seemed unaware that shortages were being created as households became smaller and more numerous.
These sources of inequality remain important moral contradictions connected with the management of shortages of healthcare resources.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations withshortage

shortage

These are words often used in combination with shortage.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

artificial shortage
We are in fact tending to create an artificial shortage and a virtual monopoly in office accommodation.
From the
Hansard archive