Adjectives as adverb

Question

Let’s say that someone owe $100 to someone but he paid $90. I mean he paid $10 less than his debt. In this case can we say

“he paid 10 dollar missing“?

If that's correct, I wonder how the adjective “missing“ was used as an adverb. If it is not correct what is the way to say this sentences?

No, “he paid 10 dollar missing“ is not correct. Instead you might say something like "He paid 10 dollars too little." You may be interested in our companion site, English Language Learners Stack Exchange — Mark Beadles, Nov 8 '18 at 13:10
No, that is not correct either: you need an adjective there to modify "10 dollars", not an adverb to modify "paid". — Mark Beadles, Nov 8 '18 at 13:26
I would say "He paid $10 short / too little". I'd say that "too little" is an NP in a fused modifier-head construction. — BillJ, Nov 8 '18 at 16:25
If the debt is paid in cash, the creditor may say, “You're missing $10” or “This is missing $10” or “There's $10 missing”. — Anton Sherwood, Dec 7 '19 at 5:38

J. Kamien · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-07 00:35:53Z

You would use the word "short."

For example, you might say

He was $10 short.

Often, but not always, it's paired with the term "come up," as in

He came up $10 short.

In America, there's an idiom to say someone came up "a day late and a dollar short", basically meaning that it's too little too late.

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