Definitions

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

  • adjective Of inferior size, strength, or significance; weak.
  • adjective Chiefly Southern US Sickly; ill.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A bedbug: same as punice.
  • Later-born; younger; junior. See puisne, 1.
  • Small and weak; inferior or imperfectly developed in size or strength; feeble; petty; insignificant.
  • Synonyms Little, diminutive, stunted, starveling.
  • noun A young, inexperienced person; a junior; a novice.

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

  • noun rare A youth; a novice.
  • adjective Imperfectly developed in size or vigor; small and feeble; inferior; petty.

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

  • noun obsolete A new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student.
  • noun obsolete A younger person.
  • noun obsolete A beginner, a novice.
  • noun archaic An inferior person; a subordinate.
  • adjective Of inferior size, strength or significance.

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

  • adjective inferior in strength or significance
  • adjective (used especially of persons) of inferior size

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Variant of puisne.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Variant form of puisne.

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Examples

  • I'll have to shoot a deer at Thanksgiving with my 338 from stem to stern to see if I can get the bullet back, and show you guys that the big X bullets are expanding, even in puny deer.

    The "Infallible" Shoulder Shot 2009

  • I'll have to shoot a deer at Thanksgiving with my 338 from stem to stern to see if I can get the bullet back, and show you guys that the big X bullets are expanding, even in puny deer.

    The "Infallible" Shoulder Shot 2009

  • Jarvis Cocker: "Why do they call a puny person a weed, when weeds are tenacious plants that grow in adverse circumstances?"

    Thin is in: in search of the perfect male body 2010

  • But ask them we must, for the human barbarian seeks explanations & meaning for what is inexplicable & unanswerable in the terms our puny brain can understand.

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • But ask them we must, for the human barbarian seeks explanations & meaning for what is inexplicable & unanswerable in the terms our puny brain can understand.

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • But ask them we must, for the human barbarian seeks explanations & meaning for what is inexplicable & unanswerable in the terms our puny brain can understand.

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • But ask them we must, for the human barbarian seeks explanations & meaning for what is inexplicable & unanswerable in the terms our puny brain can understand.

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • Jarvis Cocker: "Why do they call a puny person a weed, when weeds are tenacious plants that grow in adverse circumstances?"

    Life and style | guardian.co.uk 2010

  • But ask them we must, for the human barbarian seeks explanations & meaning for what is inexplicable & unanswerable in the terms our puny brain can understand.

    AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed 2010

  • David Pogue, has been that its offerings are "puny" -- a mere 60,000 e-books so far -- compared to what's available on the Kindle or other e-readers offered by competing retailers like Barnes

    DailyFinance Sarah Weinman 2010

Comments

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  • "I have gone all through Brahms pretty well by now. All I can say of him is that he's a puny little dwarf with a rather narrow chest. Good Lord, if a breath from the lungs of Richard Wagner whistled about his ears, he would scarcely be able to keep his feet."

    - Gustav Mahler.

    October 23, 2009

  • One can almost bet that Brahms penned better cello parts than Joseph Haydn did....

    October 23, 2009

  • heehee.

    October 23, 2009