puny

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pu=ny

CIDE DICTIONARY

puny, a. [F. puîté younger, later born, OF. puisné; puis afterwards (L. post; see Post-) + né 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."  [1913 Webster]
"Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed."  [1913 Webster]

puny, n. 

 A youth; a novice.  Fuller.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

puny, adj. (punier, puniest)
1 undersized.
2 weak, feeble.
3 petty.

Derivative

punily adv. puniness n.

Etymology

phonetic spelling of PUISNE

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

puny

Littleness

N littleness, smallness, exiguity, inextension, parvitude, parvity, duodecimo, Elzevir edition, epitome, microcosm, rudiment, vanishing point, thinness, dwarf, pygmy, pigmy, Liliputian, chit, pigwidgeon, urchin, elf, atomy, dandiprat, doll, puppet, Tom Thumb, Hop-o'-my-thumb, manikin, mannikin, homunculus, dapperling, cock-sparrow, animalcule, monad, mite, insect, emmet, fly, midge, gnat, shrimp, minnow, worm, maggot, entozoon, bacteria, infusoria, microzoa, phytozoaria, microbe, grub, tit, tomtit, runt, mouse, small fry, millet seed, mustard seed, barleycorn, pebble, grain of sand, molehill, button, bubble, point, atom, fragment, powder, point of a pin, mathematical point, minutiae, micrometer, vernier, scale, microphotography, photomicrography, micrography, photomicrograph, microphotograph, microscopy, microscope (optical instruments), little, small, minute, diminutive, microscopic, microzoal, inconsiderable, exiguous, puny, tiny, wee, petty, minikin, miniature, pygmy, pigmy, elfin, undersized, dwarf, dwarfed, dwarfish, spare, stunted, limited, cramp, cramped, pollard, Liliputian, dapper, pocket, portative, portable, duodecimo, dumpy, squat, short, impalpable, intangible, evanescent, imperceptible, invisible, inappreciable, insignificant, inconsiderable, trivial, infinitesimal, homoeopathic, atomic, subatomic, corpuscular, molecular, rudimentary, rudimental, embryonic, vestigial, weazen, scant, scraggy, scrubby, thin, granular, shrunk, brevipennate, in a small compass, in a nutshell, on a small scale, minutely, microscopically.