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dwarf

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: DWARF

English

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Etymology

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Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *dwergaz
Proto-West Germanic *dwerg
Old English dweorg
Middle English dwergh
English dwarf

    From Middle English dwergh, dwerw, dwerf, from Old English dweorg, from Proto-West Germanic *dwerg, from Proto-Germanic *dwergaz.

    Cognate with Scots droich, dwerch (“dwarf, midget”); Old High German twerc (German, Luxembourgish Zwerg (“dwarf”)); Old Norse dvergr (Danish dværg (“dwarf, midget”), Faroese dvørgur (“dwarf”), Icelandic dvergur (“dwarf”), Norwegian Bokmål dverg (“dwarf”), Norwegian Nynorsk dverg, verg (“dwarf”), Swedish dvärg (“dwarf”)); Old Frisian dwirg (Saterland Frisian Dwärch (“dwarf”), West Frisian dwerch (“dwarf”)); Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch, twerg (German Low German Dwarg (“dwarf”)); Middle Dutch dwerch, dworch (Dutch dwerg (“dwarf”)).

    The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas would have given rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge- would have led to dwery. These forms are sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects. A parallel case is that of Old English burg giving burgh, borough, burrow, bury.

    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    Nain assis (Seated Dwarf, 19th century), a painting in the style of Spanish artist Francisco Goya
    In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the seven dwarfs sing "Heigh-Ho", while walking on a log.

    dwarf (plural dwarfs or dwarves)

    1. (mythology) 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 as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.
      Synonyms: dwarfin (rare), dwarrow (rare)
      • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, 1st US edition, New York: Viking Press, →ISBN, part 3: In the Zone, page 419:
        [T]he elf king and his queen made a royal progress every noon with a splendid retinue of dwarves and sprites, […]
      • 2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 20:
        Nidavellir, which is sometimes called Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs (who are also known as dark elves) live beneath the mountains and build their remarkable creations.
    2. (now sometimes offensive) A person of short stature, often one whose limbs are disproportionately small in relation to the body as compared with typical adults, usually as the result of a genetic condition.
      Synonyms: elf, midget, pygmy (imprecise)
      Antonyms: ettin (archaic), giant
      • 2014 September 12, Cara Reedy, “My life as a little person”, in CNN‎[1], archived from the original on 17 February 2016:
        The nurse exclaimed it when I finally arrived, a month late (a habit I have kept). That's how my parents found out that I was a little person, a dwarf, of short stature.
    3. An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort.
      Synonym: runt
      dwarf tree
      dwarf honeysuckle
    5. (astronomy) A dwarf star.
      Hypernyms: main-sequence star < star < celestial body
      Hyponyms: red dwarf, blue dwarf, yellow dwarf, white dwarf, black dwarf, brown dwarf
      Coordinate terms: subgiant, giant, bright giant, supergiant, hypergiant
      • 2024 August 21, Ashley Strickland, “An unusual object is moving so fast it could escape the Milky Way. Scientists aren’t certain what it is”, in CNN‎[2], archived from the original on 24 September 2024:
        But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades. […] The study team said it’s likely the star was a companion to a white dwarf star, which is the remaining core of a dead star that has expelled the gases that serve as its nuclear fuel.

    Usage notes

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    • At first, dwarfs was the only normative plural in modern English, and dwarves was considered incorrect.[1] After J. R. R. Tolkien used dwarves in his works, that form became an acceptable plural for the mythological beings. For a non-mythological dwarf (people with dwarfism, small plants, animals, planets, stars, etc.), dwarfs has remained the preferred plural form.
    • The use of dwarf to describe people with dwarfism is currently considered to be offensive by some.

    Derived terms

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    general terms
    plants and animals
    astronomy terms

    Translations

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    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
    Translations to be checked

    Adjective

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    dwarf (comparative dwarfer, superlative dwarfest)

    1. (especially in botany) Miniature.
      The specimen is a very dwarf form of the plant.
      It is possible to grow the plants as dwarf as one desires.

    Translations

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    Verb

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    dwarf (third-person singular simple present dwarfs, present participle dwarfing, simple past and past participle dwarfed)

    1. (transitive) To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version).
      Synonyms: miniaturize, shrink
    2. (transitive) To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny; to be much larger than.
      The newly-built skyscraper dwarfs all older buildings in the downtown skyline.
      • 1960 April, J. P. Wilson, E. N. C. Haywood, “The route through the Peak - Derby to Manchester: Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 225:
        The train bursts from Rusher Cutting Tunnel with explosive violence, the engine's exhaust soaring high into the air, but dwarfed by the mighty limestone cliffs on either side.
      • 2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 184:
        In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter.
    3. (transitive) To make appear insignificant.
      Synonyms: eclipse, overshadow, outshadow, outshine, outdo, put to shame, upstage, surpass, outmatch, outstrip
      Bach dwarfs all other composers.
    4. (intransitive) To become (much) smaller.
      Synonym: shrink
    5. To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.
      • 1710 July 3 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “THURSDAY, June 22, 1710”, in The Spectator, number 98; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
        At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk - into a race of beauties that seems almost another species
        The spelling has been modernized.
      • 1881, John Campbell Shairp, Aspects of Poetry:
        Even the most common moral ideas and affections […] would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background.
      • 2016 June 9, James Griffiths, “This is how the ‘Hobbits’ of Indonesia became so small”, in CNN‎[3], archived from the original on 11 April 2021:
        “The morphology of the fossil teeth also suggests that this human lineage represents a dwarfed descendant of early Homo erectus that somehow got marooned on the island of Flores,” Yousuke Kaifu, from Tokyo’s National Museum of Nature and Science, said in a statement.

    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    References

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    1. ^ Peter Smith (1826), An Analytical System of English Grammar; […], Edinburgh: […] Oliver & Boyd, […]; and Geo[rge] B[yrom] Whittaker, London, page 17:
      How are the following nouns improperly formed, and what should they be? viz.—Lifes, knifes, dwarves, mischieves—boxs, churchs, dishs, fishs—enemys, flys, skys, spys—louses, mouses, oxes, pennys—arcanums, datums, erratums, phænomenons—bacheloress, benefactoress, governoress—boys books, girls dolls, childs rattle—diligence sake; Jane’s, Margaret’s, and Isabella’s mother; John’s, Peter’s, and Frank’s books.

    Further reading

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