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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
puny
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
puny profits
▪ a puny kid
▪ His wife was such a big strong woman, she made him look puny.
▪ Pete was a puny little boy with short hair and glasses.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And they had to take four semesters of hygiene, or gym-perhaps to counter their waxy pallor and puny stature.
▪ Can you still get your divorce on such puny, immediately regretted unfaithfulness?
▪ Oh, how puny my contemporaries seem by comparison!
▪ Persuasive in its action moments but puny in terms of character and dialogue.
▪ So, Cyclops, you were not quite strong enough to eat all of the puny men?
▪ The relatively puny father-of-three could have been forgiven for having second thoughts when he was picked.
▪ Volker's puny body shook with anger.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Puny

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.

Puny

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
puny

1570s, "inferior in rank" (1540s as a noun, "junior pupil, freshman"), from Middle French puisné (Modern French puîné), from Old French puisne "born later, younger, youngest" (12c., contrasted with aisné "first-born"), from puis nez, from puis "afterward" (from Vulgar Latin *postius, from Latin postea "after this, hereafter," from post "after," see post-, + ea "there") + Old French "born," from Latin natus, past participle of nasci "be born" (Old Latin gnasci; see genus). Sense of "small, weak, insignificant" first recorded 1590s. Compare puisne. Related: Puniness.

Wiktionary
puny

a. Of inferior size, strength or significance. n. 1 (context obsolete English) A new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student. 2 (context obsolete English) A younger person. 3 (context obsolete English) A beginner, a novice. 4 (context archaic English) An inferior person; a subordinate.

WordNet
puny
  1. adj. inferior in strength or significance; "a puny physique"; "puny excuses"

  2. (used especially of persons) of inferior size [syn: runty, shrimpy]

  3. [also: puniest, punier]

Usage examples of "puny".

As I started in pursuit, I saw the mighty basto lower its head and charge straight for my companion, who stood there motionless with his puny sword and the leafy branch grasped one in either hand.

The human body was a puny, weak, ill-balanced miscreation, its vital systems fragile and inefficient.

Our refectory will be found to contain every species of fruit, from the cooling nectarine and luscious peach to the puny pippin and the noxious nut.

The shots that the crooks offered were all as puny as the squdgy pops from the .

He considered the attack from the perspective of those backstabs he knew from his experiences fighting men, but he looked at his puny dagger doubtfully.

This was a puny effort, not much larger than the private ditch dug by Brumbaugh, and it did nothing for the important accumulations of benchlands to the north.

She was aware of them subliminally, and of the stems of some puny chickory weeds poking up against the horizon, and of the horizon itself - brilliant green meeting brilliant blue, while uncaring IlKn nature forged on with its summer schedule ard left a ravaged woman to gather her forces irl the road.

Should they try puny methods of revenge, after learning that Lamont Cranston is dead, Gats can wipe them out with little trouble.

Before long he shamed the adult owners of punier craft away from his sea.

For Bert Skirvel, the puny human who had been in that car, was also gone, along with the even punier bundles of loot that marked the profits of his final bank robbery!

I ask how this priest, whose salary is even punier than mine, is supposed to pay our fees?

His punier brethren quaked before his tail, Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.

These, besides being generally punier than any other cows in Shreveport right now, were resting from their long hike, all lying still and quiet, not even ruminating.

Yet at that moment such nervous power did I gather from my rage, that I swung him from his feet as though he had been the puniest weakling.

I could only mourn, and I had no right to mourn, having never loved him--or if I did, even in the puniest of ways, it was never his person I loved, but what I had from him, the things awakened in me by what had happened.