短(duǎn) - short, brief in Mandarin

短 (duǎn) is the opposite of 长, and it covers both kinds of shortness English does: physical length, as in short hair or short trousers, and stretches of time, as in a short holiday or a short film.

It often follows a verb as a result: 剪短 is to cut short, 缩短 is to shorten. As a plain adjective it wants a degree word in front of it, so 很短 rather than a bare 短 in a normal statement.

The trap is height. A short person is 矮, never 短, and saying 他很短 about a human being is the kind of mistake people remember. Keep 短 for length along a line, and note that a short while is 一会儿, an idiom rather than anything built on 短.