Crossword clues for pygmy
pygmy
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pygmy \Pyg"my\, n.; pl. Pygmies. [L. pygmaeus, Gr. ?, fr. ? the fist, a measure of length, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles, about 131 inches. Cf. Pugnacious, Fist.]
(Class. Myth.) One of a fabulous race of dwarfs who waged war with the cranes, and were destroyed.
Hence, a short, insignificant person; a dwarf.
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One of a race of Central African Negritos found chiefly in the great forests of the equatorial belt. They are the shortest of known races, the adults ranging from less than four to about five feet in stature. They are timid and shy, dwelling in the recesses of the forests, though often on good terms with neighboring Negroes.
Pygmies are pygmies still, though perched on Alps. And pyramids are pyramids in vales.
--Young.
Pygmy \Pyg"my\, Pygmean \Pyg*me"an\, a. [L. pygmaeus. See
Pygmy.]
Of or pertaining to a pygmy; resembling a pygmy or dwarf;
dwarfish; very small. `` Like that Pygmean race.''
--Milton.
Pygmy antelope (Zo["o]l.), the kleeneboc.
Pygmy goose (Zo["o]l.), any species of very small geese of the genus Nettapus, native of Africa, India, and Australia.
Pygmy owl (Zo["o]l.), the gnome.
Pygmy parrot (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of very small green parrots ( Nasitern[ae]), native of New Guinea and adjacent islands. They are not larger than sparrows.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., Pigmei, "member of a fabulous race of dwarfs," described by Homer and Herodotus and said to inhabit Egypt or Ethiopia and India, from Latin Pygmaei (singular Pygmaeus), from Greek Pygmaioi, plural of Pygmaios "a Pygmy," noun use of adjective meaning "dwarfish," literally "of the length of a pygme; a pygme tall," from pygme "cubit," literally "fist," the measure of length from the elbow to the knuckle; related to pyx "with clenched fist" and to Latin pugnus "fist" (see pugnacious).\n
\nFigurative use for "person of small importance" is from 1590s. Believed in 17c. to refer to chimpanzees or orangutans, and occasionally the word was used in this sense. The ancient word was applied by Europeans to the equatorial African race 1863, but the tribes probably were known to the ancients and likely were the original inspiration for the legend. As an adjective from 1590s. Related: Pygmean; Pygmaean.
Wiktionary
a. 1 Relating or belonging to the Pygmy people 2 Like a pygmy; unusually short or small for its kind alt. 1 (''often capitalized, usually in the plural: '''Pygmies''''') A member of one of various Ancient Equatorial African tribal peoples, notable for their very short stature 2 (context Greek mythology English) A member of a race of dwarfs 3 (context figuratively English) Any dwarfish person 4 (context figuratively English) An insignificant person, at least in some respect n. 1 (''often capitalized, usually in the plural: '''Pygmies''''') A member of one of various Ancient Equatorial African tribal peoples, notable for their very short stature 2 (context Greek mythology English) A member of a race of dwarfs 3 (context figuratively English) Any dwarfish person 4 (context figuratively English) An insignificant person, at least in some respect
WordNet
n. an unusually small individual [syn: pigmy]
any member of various peoples having an average height of less than five feet [syn: Pigmy]
Wikipedia
Pygmy is an epistolary novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It was released on May 5, 2009.
Pygmy may refer to:
- Pygmies, members of any human group whose adult males grow to less than a specific height
- Pygmy (Greek mythology), a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology
- Pygmy (novel), 2009 novel by Chuck Palahniuk
- Pygmy forest, forest which only contains miniature trees
- Pygmy Lush, American band
- Note that the 200+ animals with names including "pygmy" are not individually listed on this page
The Pygmies ( Pygmaioi, from the adjective πυγμαῖος from πυγμή pygmē, "the length of the forearm") were a tribe of diminutive humans in Greek mythology. According to the Iliad, they were involved in a constant war with the cranes, which migrated in winter to their homeland on the southern shores of the earth-encircling river Oceanus. One story describes the origin of the age-old battle, speaking of a Pygmy Queen named Gerana who offended the goddess Hera with her boasts of superior beauty, and was transformed into a crane.
In art the scene was popular with little Pygmies armed with spears and slings, riding on the backs of goats, battling the flying cranes. The 2nd-century BC tomb near Panticapaeum, Crimea "shows the battle of human pygmies with a flock of herons".
The Pygmies were often portrayed as pudgy, comical dwarfs.
In another legend, the Pygmies once encountered Heracles, and climbing all over the sleeping hero attempted to bind him down, but when he stood up they fell off. The story was adapted by Jonathan Swift as a template for Lilliputians.
Later Greek geographers and writers attempted to place the Pygmies in a geographical context. Sometimes they were located in far India, at other times near the Ethiopians of Africa. The Pygmy bush tribes of central Africa were so named after the Greek mythological creatures by European explorers in the 19th century.
Usage examples of "pygmy".
Magpie Maggie Hag sat down, with Phoebe Simms helping, to work on the costumes for Madame Alp and the White African Pygmies.
Maggie Hag had finished basting together the dresses for Madame Alp and the White Pygmies, and had commanded a try-on.
A somersaulting shape, the pygmy killer was tossed beyond the crumbling mass of stone and dirt that entombed a dozen helpless people within the Aureole Mine.
I would have no terror of mutability because I would know all, and the pygmies who now surround me would be spiteblasted away.
Dreadful Bird Stamped his huge footprints, and the Fearful Beast Strode with the flesh about those fossil bones We build to mimic life with pygmy hands, Not in those earliest days when men ran wild And gashed each other with their knives of stone, When their low foreheads bulged in ridgy brows And their flat hands were callous in the palm With walking in the fashion of their sires, Grope as they might to find a cruel god To work their will on such as human wrath Had wrought its worst to torture, and had left With rage unsated, white and stark and cold, Could hate have shaped a demon more malign Than him the dead men mummied in their creed And taught their trembling children to adore!
Option Two: abandon the secure cozy comforts of the timemobile capsule, take his chances on foot out there in the steamy mists, a futuristic pygmy roaming virtually unprotected among the dinosaurs of this fragrant Late Cretaceous forest.
Catherine de Medicis had three couples of dwarfs at one time, and in 1579 she had still five pygmies, named Merlin, Mandricart, Pelavine, Rodomont, and Majoski.
Barbarians were confounded by the image of their own patience and the masculine females, spitting in the faces of their sons and husbands, most bitterly reproached them for betraying their dominion and freedom to these pygmies of the south, contemptible in their numbers, diminutive in their stature.
The shelves to the right of my desk are laden with busts of all the typical ethnic types found in Africa, Hamites, Arabs, pygmies, the negroids, Boskops, bushmen, Griqua, Hottentot and all the others.
CHAPTER XIV LINK BRINGS LINE HALTED like toy dolls with rundown mechanism, pygmy crooks heard the crash of the battering rock as it shattered saplings into match-wood.
In groups such as the Efe and Aka Pygmies of central Africa, allomothers actually hold children and carry them about.
Earth, he chants the chants of the Navaho, the Gabon Pygmies, the Ashanti, the Mundugu-mor.
Janie walked, smiling, past the gibbons howling in their habitat and the pygmy hippos floating calmly in their pool, their eyes shut, green bubbles breaking around them like little fish.
Battel discovered another pygmy people near the Obongo who are called the Dongos.
Once we were beyond the Ituri Forest, with its lovely little Pygmy exhibits, we got on the Ubangi-Shari Highway, heading on north into the ever-dryer grasslands of the Sudan and the Sahelian subdesert.