dwarf
Part of speech: noun
adj
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: astronomy
human-sciences
mysticism
mythology
natural-sciences
philosophy
sciences
Etymology: 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.
Inflected forms:
form: dwarfs
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: dwarves
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: dwarfer
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: dwarfest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: dwarfs
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: dwarfing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: dwarfed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: dwarfed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
examples: [T]he elf king and his queen made a royal progress every noon with a splendid retinue of dwarves and sprites, […]
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.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: offensive
sometimes
examples: 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.
gloss: An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort.
pos: noun
examples: dwarf tree
dwarf honeysuckle
gloss: A dwarf star.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: Miniature.
pos: adj
tags: especially
examples: The specimen is a very dwarf form of the plant.
It is possible to grow the plants as dwarf as one desires.
gloss: To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny; to be much larger than.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The newly-built skyscraper dwarfs all older buildings in the downtown skyline.
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.
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.
gloss: To make appear insignificant.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Bach dwarfs all other composers.
gloss: To become (much) smaller.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.
pos: verb
examples: At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk - into a race of beauties that seems almost another species
Even the most common moral ideas and affections […] would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background.
Derived words: African dwarf sawshark
Cuvier's dwarf caiman
dwarf beech
dwarf bilberry
dwarf birch
dwarf cassowary
dwarf cherry
dwarf chimpanzee
dwarf coastweed
dwarf cobweb weaver spider
dwarf crocodile
dwarf ctenopoma
dwarf dandelion
dwarf elder
dwarf eldest daughter
dwarf emu
dwarf gourami
dwarf green anole
dwarf horsetail
dwarf huckleberry
dwarf jade
dwarf joe-pye weed
dwarf lemur
dwarf mistletoe
dwarf morning glory
dwarf morning-glory
dwarf nettle
dwarf olive
dwarf rabbit
dwarf raven
dwarf Russian almond
dwarf seahorse
dwarf siren
dwarf sperm whale
dwarf thistle
dwarf tinamou
Elandsberg dwarf chameleon
fat-tailed dwarf lemur
Groves' dwarf lemur
hairy-eared dwarf lemur
island dwarf
Mediterranean dwarf palm
Roosmalens' dwarf marmoset
Russian winter white dwarf hamster
semidwarf
shaggy dwarf morning glory
Siberian dwarf hamster
Smith's dwarf chameleon
Tanishpa's dwarf gecko
undwarfed
Translations: