Definition of "fall short"

fall short

verb
third-person singular simple present falls short, present participle falling short, simple past fell short, past participle fallen short
1. (idiomatic) to be less satisfactory than expected; to be inadequate or insufficient
  Quotations
  Ample proof that the maintenance of locomotives and track in the mid-Victorian era sometimes fell far short of present-day standards is afforded by an accident which occurred on July 3, 1866, near Royston, on the Cambridge branch of the Great Northern Railway.
  1946 July and August, “The Royston Accident, G.N.R., July 3, 1866”, in Railway Magazine, page 216
  They have fallen short on so many occasions that an England team who rises to the occasion are worthy of the highest praise.
  2018 July 7, Phil McNulty, “Sweden 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport‎
  But if being is not a whole through being affected by that affection, and there is such a thing as the whole itself, it follows that being falls short of itself.
  2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 245c