Short stature refers to a height of a human being which is below typical. Whether a person is considered short depends on the context. Because of the lack of preciseness, there is often disagreement about the degree of shortness that should be called short.

In a medical context, short stature is typically defined as an adult height that is more than two standard deviations below the mean for age and gender, which corresponds to the shortest 2.3% of individuals. In developed countries, this typically includes adult men who are shorter than 166 centimetres (5 ft 5 in) tall and adult women who are shorter than 153 centimetres (5 ft 0 in) tall.

By comparison, the median or typical adult height in these populations (as the widely abundant statistics from these countries clearly state) is about 177 centimetres (5 ft 10 in) for men and 164 centimetres (5 ft 5 in) for women.