puny
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
puny
adj 1: inferior in strength or significance; "a puny physique";
"puny excuses"
2: (used especially of persons) of inferior size [syn: {puny},
{runty}, {shrimpy}]
from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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
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