Puny

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Puny \Pu"ny\, n.
     A youth; a novice. [R.] --Fuller.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  Puny \Pu"ny\, a. [Compar. {Punier}; superl. {Puniest}.] [F.
     pu[^i]t['e] younger, later born, OF. puisn['e]; puis
     afterwards (L. post; see {Post-}) + n['e] born, L. natus. See
     {Natal}, and cf. {Puisne}.]
     Imperfectly developed in size or vigor; small and feeble;
     inferior; petty.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           A puny subject strikes at thy great glory. --Shak.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed.   --Keble.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  puny
       adj 1: inferior in strength or significance; "a puny physique";
              "puny excuses"
       2: (used especially of persons) of inferior size [syn: {runty},
           {shrimpy}]
       [also: {puniest}, {punier}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  154 Moby Thesaurus words for "puny":
     Lenten, Spartan, abstemious, ascetic, attenuated, austere,
     breakable, brittle, cadaverous, cheap-jack, cobwebby, corpselike,
     cramped, crumbly, dainty, decrepit, delicate, delicately weak,
     diminutive, dinky, dwarf, dwarfed, dwarfish, effeminate,
     emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, exiguous, feeble, flimsy, fragile,
     frail, frangible, frugal, gimcrack, gimcracky, gossamery, haggard,
     half-pint, hollow-eyed, impoverished, inconsequential, inferior,
     infirm, insignificant, jejune, jerkwater, jerry, jerry-built,
     knee-high, lean, light, lightweight, limited, little, marantic,
     marasmic, meager, mean, measly, midget, minor, minute, miserly,
     namby-pamby, narrow, negligible, niggardly, niggling, nugatory,
     one-horse, paltry, papery, parsimonious, pasteboardy, peaked,
     peaky, petite, pettifogging, petty, picayune, picayunish, piddling,
     piffling, pinched, pindling, pint-sized, poky, poor, punk, pygmy,
     scant, scanty, scrawny, scrimp, scrimpy, shattery, short,
     shriveled, sickly, sissified, skeletal, skimp, skimpy, sleazy,
     slender, slight, slim, small, small-beer, small-time, smallish,
     spare, sparing, starvation, starved, starveling, stingy, stinted,
     straitened, stunted, subsistence, tabetic, tabid, tacky, thin,
     tinhorn, tiny, trifling, trivial, two-bit, two-by-four,
     underdeveloped, underfed, undernourished, undersized, unimportant,
     unnourishing, unnutritious, unsound, unsubstantial, useless,
     wasted, watered, watery, weak, weakly, weazeny, wispy, withered,
     wizened, womanish, worthless, wraithlike