Adjacent Words

Puny definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PU'NY, a.
1. Properly, young or younger; but in this sense not used.
2. Inferior; petty; of an under rate; small and feeble. This word generally includes the signification of both smallness and feebleness; as a puny animal; a puny subject; a puny power; a puny mind.
PU'NY, n. A young inexperienced person; a novice.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

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

Merriam Webster's

adjective (punier; -est) Etymology: Anglo-French puisné younger, weakly, literally, born afterward, from puis afterward + né born Date: 1593 slight or inferior in power, size, or importance ; weak • punily adverb • puniness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (punier, puniest) 1 undersized. 2 weak, feeble. 3 petty. Derivatives: punily adv. puniness n. Etymology: phonetic spelling of PUISNE

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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. A puny subject strikes at thy great glory. --Shak. Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed. --Keble.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

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

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(punier, puniest) Someone or something that is puny is very small or weak. ...a puny, bespectacled youth... = feeble ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Weak, feeble, inferior. 2. Little, small, petty, insignificant, diminutive, undeveloped, undersized, tiny, dwarf, dwarfish, pygmy, pygmean, stunted, Liliputian.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Weak. A puny child; a weak little child. A puny stomach; a weak stomach. Puny, or puisne judge; the last made judge.

Moby Thesaurus

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