means A route or method that's quicker and more direct than the usual one, whether through space, time, or effort.

from A plain compound of "short" and "cut," both old Germanic-rooted English words. "Short" traces back to Old English sceort, and "cut" is medieval English of uncertain origin, possibly Scandinavian. The literal sense — a path that cuts a journey short — came first; the figurative "easy way to do something" sense grew naturally out of it, and the computing keyboard "shortcut" is a 20th-century descendant of the same idea.