short circuit

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A low-resistance connection between two points in an electric circuit through which the current tends to flow rather than along the intended path. A short circuit can damage the circuit by overheating.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• (Elec.) A circuit formed or closed by a conductor of relatively low resistance because shorter or of relatively great conductivity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A usually unintentional connection of low resistance or impedance in a circuit such that excessive and often damaging current flows in it.
• verb transitive to cause a short circuit in
• verb transitive, by extension to force termination of an ongoing process before its natural conclusion by bypassing one or more intermediary steps
• verb transitive, computing to terminate a loop before the declared termination condition is met or a conditional before all conditions have been tested for

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun accidental contact between two points in an electric circuit that have a potential difference