puny
Americanadjective
-
of less than normal size and strength; weak.
-
unimportant; insignificant; petty or minor.
a puny excuse.
-
Obsolete. puisne.
adjective
-
having a small physique or weakly constitution
-
paltry; insignificant
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of puny
First recorded in 1540–50; spelling variant of puisne
Explanation
Are your muscles looking small, weak, and totally inferior? In other words, puny? Sounds like somebody needs to eat more spinach. Tiny, shrimpy, wimpy and totally unthreatening. That's puny in a nutshell — a very small, totally lame looking nutshell. It's most often used to describe someone's inferior physique, but can also apply to anything little that's not about to get in your way. A puny mountain would be no challenge to an Olympic skier, just as a puny plate of hot dogs would be laughable to a world speed-eating champion.
Vocabulary lists containing puny
The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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List 13
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
At the top, Whittaker wrote later, he felt frail and puny.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
Climate change is what philosopher Timothy Morton calls a hyperobject: something that so massively occupies space and time that our puny primate brains have trouble fathoming them.
From Salon • Dec. 31, 2025
Some senior Labour figures fret privately that their talk of "missions" and a "Plan for Change" might seem puny to many in comparison with the scale of that challenge.
From BBC • Mar. 13, 2025
The park is a puny nine square miles and offered P-22 no mating opportunities.
From Los Angeles Times • May 22, 2024
“But don’t bother. Hell, it wouldn’t be fair. You against that poor little puny thing.”
From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
