runty
1
7.8
- adjective
- /ˈrʌnti/
- Informal
:
enano
- It's the runty pig of the litter.
- runty little
Examples
-
In the garden, we noticed that the runty tomato plants produced fewer fruits than the healthier ones.
-
To him, this boy Braille, this son of a saddler, this runty bag of bones, was the sort of boy one routinely ignored except to have him stoop to give one a leg up onto a horse.
Academic text (1996) -
It's a good trick if you are a runty little kid.
Fiction book (2001) -
She was brought up on sheep's milk eventually, bottle-fed like a runty lamb.
Fiction book (2000) -
A city rec league makes a short, runty first-grader produce a birth certificate to play T-Ball in an age 6-9 league.
Blog text (29) -
The runty puppy struggled to keep up with its larger siblings during playtime.
-
He always referred to the runty kid in class who had difficulty reaching the basketball hoop.
Synonyms
56
3.4
Very small and weak, not impressive
8
3.3
Smaller than the normal size for its kind
7
4.2
Very small, often used for a person, animal, or thing that is lively
1
7.8
Very short in height, often used about people
1
7.7
A person who is smaller and thinner than others
1
4.4
Very small in height, usually used for a person or animal
1
7.2
Much smaller than what is normal or expected
Smaller and weaker than others of the same kind
A person who is very short and stocky
Antonyms
How Small
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Runty comes from the simple word runt, which names the smallest or weakest animal in a group, plus the ending -y that makes words mean 'having the quality of'. So runty means 'unusually small' or weak compared to others, like the smallest puppy in a group.