The Collaborative International Dictionary
To sell short
Short \Short\, adv. In a short manner; briefly; limitedly; abruptly; quickly; as, to stop short in one's course; to turn short.
He was taken up very short, and adjudged corrigible for
such presumptuous language.
--Howell.
To sell short (Stock Exchange), to sell, for future delivery, what the party selling does not own, but hopes to buy at a lower rate.