dwarf

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A person with a usually genetic disorder resulting in atypically short stature and often disproportionate limbs.
• noun An atypically small animal or plant.
• noun A small creature resembling a human, often having magical powers, appearing in legends and fairy tales.
• noun A dwarf star.
• intransitive verb To check the natural growth or development of; stunt.
• intransitive verb To cause to appear small by comparison.
• intransitive verb To become stunted or grow smaller.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A person of very small size; a human being much below the ordinary stature.
• noun An animal or a plant much below the ordinary size of its species.
• noun In Scand. myth., a diminutive and generally deformed being, dwelling in rocks and hills, and distinguished for skill in working metals.
• Of small stature or size; of a size smaller than that common to its kind or species: as, a dwaf palm; dwarf trees.
• To hinder from growing to the natural size; make or keep small; prevent the due development of; stunt.
• To cause to appear less than reality; cause to look or seem small by comparison; as, the cathedral dwarfs the houses around it.
• To become less; become dwarfish or stunted.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun An animal or plant which is much below the ordinary size of its species or kind.
• noun A diminutive human being, small in stature due to a pathological condition which causes a distortion of the proportions of body parts to each other, such as the limbs, torso, and head. A person of unusually small height who has normal body proportions is usually called a midget.
• noun (Folklore) A small, usually misshapen person, typically a man, who may have magical powers; mythical dwarves were often depicted as living underground in caves.
• noun (Bot.) danewort.
• noun (Arch.) a low wall, not as high as the story of a building, often used as a garden wall or fence.
• transitive verb To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.
• intransitive verb To become small; to diminish in size.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A creature from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having supernatural powers and being skilled in metalworking. Sometimes pluralized dwarves, especially in modern fantasy literature.
• noun (now sometimes offensive) A person with short stature, often one whose limbs are disproportionately small in relation to the body as compared with normal adults, usually as the result of a genetic condition.
• noun An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort.
• noun astronomy A star of relatively small size.
• adjective Miniature.
• verb transitive To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version).
• verb transitive To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny.
• verb transitive To make appear insignificant.
• verb intransitive To become (much) smaller.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb make appear small by comparison
• noun a plant or animal that is atypically small
• noun a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man; lives in the depths of the earth and guards buried treasure
• verb check the growth of
• noun a person who is markedly small