What is "dwarf"

Dwarf \Dwarf\, v. i. To become small; to diminish in size.

Strange power of the world that, the moment we enter it, our great conceptions dwarf.
--Beaconsfield.

Dwarf \Dwarf\, n.; pl. Dwarfs. [OE. dwergh, dwerf, dwarf, AS. dweorg, dweorh; akin to D. dwerg, MHG. twerc, G. zwerg, Icel. dvergr, Sw. & Dan. dverg; of unknown origin.]

1. An animal or plant which is much below the ordinary size of its species or kind.

2. Especially: 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.

   Note: During the Middle Ages dwarfs as well as fools shared the favor of courts and the nobility.

3. (Folklore) A small, usually misshapen person, typically a man, who may have magical powers; mythical dwarves were often depicted as living underground in caves.

   Note: Dwarf is used adjectively in reference to anything much below the usual or normal size; as, a dwarf pear tree; dwarf honeysuckle.

   Dwarf elder (Bot.), danewort.

   Dwarf wall (Arch.), a low wall, not as high as the story of a building, often used as a garden wall or fence.
   --Gwilt.

Dwarf \Dwarf\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Dwarfed; p. pr. & vb. n. Dwarfing.] To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.
--Addison.

Even the most common moral ideas and affections . . . would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background.
--J. C. Shairp.

"to render dwarfish," 1620s, from dwarf (n.); sense of "to cause to look small" is from 1850. Related: Dwarfed; dwarfing.

Old English dweorh, dweorg (West Saxon), duerg (Mercian), "very short human being," from Proto-Germanic *dweraz (cognates: Old Frisian dwerch, Old Saxon dwerg, Old High German twerg, German Zwerg, Old Norse dvergr), perhaps from PIE *dhwergwhos "something tiny," but with no established cognates outside Germanic. The mythological sense is 1770, from German (it seems never to have developed independently in English).\n\nWhilst in this and other ways the dwarfs do at times have dealings with mankind, yet on the whole they seem to shrink from man; they give the impression of a downtrodden afflicted race, which is on the point of abandoning its ancient home to new and more powerful invaders. There is stamped on their character something shy and something heathenish, which estranges them from intercourse with christians. They chafe at human faithlessness, which no doubt would primarily mean the apostacy from heathenism. In the poems of the Mid. Ages, Laurin is expressly set before us as a heathen. It goes sorely against the dwarfs to see churches built, bell-ringing ... disturbs their ancient privacy; they also hate the clearing of forests, agriculture, new fangled pounding-machinery for ore.

["Teutonic Mythology," Jacob Grimm, transl. Stallybrass, 1883]

1. (context especially in botany English) miniature#English. n. 1 (context mythology English) Any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often depicted as short, and sometimes depicted as clashing with elves. 2 (context now often offensive English) A person of 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. 3 An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort. 4 (context star English) A star of relatively small size. v

2. 1 (context transitive English) To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version). 2 (context transitive English) To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny.

1. n. a person who is abnormally small [syn: midget, nanus]

2. a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man; lives in the depths of the earth and guards buried treasure [syn: gnome]

3. [also: dwarves (pl)]

1. v. make appear small by comparison; "This year's debt dwarves that of last year" [syn: shadow, overshadow]

2. check the growth of; "the lack of sunlight dwarfed these pines"

3. [also: dwarves (pl)]

In Germanic mythology, a dwarf is a small human-shaped being that dwells in mountains and in the earth, and is variously associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting. Dwarfs are often also described as short and ugly, although some scholars have questioned whether this is a later development stemming from comical portrayals of the beings. The concept of the dwarf has had influence in modern popular culture and appears in a variety of media.

In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Dwarves are a race inhabiting the world of Arda, a fictional prehistoric Earth which includes the continent Middle-earth.

They appear in his books The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), the posthumously published The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980), and The History of Middle-earth series (1983–96), the last three edited by his son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien.

Dwarf may refer to:

• Dwarf (mythology), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore
• A person or animal with dwarfism

In Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, the Dwarfs are a race of short, stout humanoids very similar to the dwarves of Middle-earth and those of Dungeons & Dragons. Dwarfs in the Warhammer setting are proud warriors highly driven by honor and the making of oaths.

A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.